Rez the Arbiter
by Lo Rezzie No
Summary: Rezzie was a freelancer merely living his life from day to day. However, when a dark night goes south, he inadvertently unlocks his powers. Now that he is thrust into a new world that was beyond his understanding, he finds that not only is he not alone in it but it is far larger than he could ever realize.
1. Prologue

**Prologue – Boy in the Forest**  
—

It was a cool spring morning in the Asterisk Mountains, with the sun beating along the forest groves that littered the mountain ranges. The air was feeling slightly thick as a lingering aftereffect from the subsided fog that had combed over the lands just an hour ago. It left the ground and the flora around with a tint of fresh dew. Soon summer would be coming and days like this would become far more frequent than not.

Out of the lone farmhouse that sat upon a mountaintop, a young boy by the age of 12 stepped out of the front door and onto the hard ground. He stood shy of four and a half feet tall, with short, scruffy brown hair that covered his dark brown eyes. He had tan skin that coated over a muscular frame that was befitting a child who worked hard in the outdoors. He wore a grey tank top and lose black shorts which were held by an orange belt. However, he had no shoes on, preferring to go barefoot; the hardened soles of his feet were a testament of this fact.

As the boy was taking in the slight breeze that bristled past and around him, he heard a female voice call out to him, "Rezzie! What are you doing out there?"

Rezzie turned around to the source of the voice, which came from the front doorway of their house. There stood a young girl a year older and a few inches taller than he was with her hands on her hips. Apart from her long, blonde hair and the usual feminine features, she looked like a doppelganger of Rezzie.

The boy still retained stone-faced as he fully faced her, "Just catching some morning rays, Ivy. Looks like summer is finally starting to set in."  
"Child, summer set in the day the school year ended," scoffed the girl as she rolled her eyes at him.  
"I'm sorry, child?" Rezzie, "Not sure why you keep ignoring the memo, sis, but you're not even a year older than I am."  
"Yeah but I'm smarter than you by years," bragged Ivy as she stuck her nose up arrogantly.  
"And you can be the smartest person in the world and still be dumber than a box of rocks," Rezzie noted as her expression changed to an annoyed one, "Anyways, did dad want us for anything today?"

The two siblings often had childish spats like this far too often to count. Then again, siblings often argued among themselves all the same. As Rezzie cracked his neck to remove the sudden stiffness that was ailing it, Ivy's expression left her as she took a more calmer state of mind.

"Yeah. Once we're done with chores and training, he and mom have something to talk to us about over lunch," answered Ivy, "the firewood inside needs to be taken outside and stacked with the rest and the trash from the bins around the house needs to be put in the dumpster bin."  
"And I suppose you and dad will be training together as usual?" Rezzie asked as he absentmindedly cracked his knuckles  
"Yeah. I got that national wakeboard competition coming up so I need to prepare for it."

Rezzie's eyes sunk down a bit in dejection. For as long as he could remember, Ivy and their father were like two peas in a pod. Likely inseparable if they could. And when his sister took up wakeboarding and proven to be skilled in the sport, he dedicated a good portion of his efforts into making sure she was the best she could be. Of course, with them having similar personalities they tend of butt heads on certain matters. Rezzie could never get himself into water sports, even though he was a good swimmer. So for the most part, he was pretty much left on the back burner to his own devices.

"All right. I'll tell ya what, I'll take care of the chores since it isn't much to do. You can get a head start on your training if you want," suggested Rezzie as he made his way up the steps onto the front porch.  
"That's awfully generous. What's the occasion?" asked Ivy as she raised an eyebrow at him.  
"I'm not sure. I'll get back to you on that later," he answered as he maneuvered past Ivy and went back inside.

As he left Ivy to her business, Rezzie went into the kitchen and grabbed an empty trash bag from under the sink and went from room to room emptying out the trash bins. Each one looked about partially full, halfway at the most. Once he got done with gathering the trash from around the house, he tied it up and put it in the dumpster bin next to the front porch.

He then went into the garage where the firewood was stored. There was about a couple dozen pieces that were there, likely been there since the start of winter. Opening the garage door, he grabbed the wheelbarrow and started putting firewood pieces in there half a dozen at a time. After five trips of putting the firewood outside with the rest that were stacked up on the side of the house, he took a dustpan and swept up the broken off wood chips and bark that was left behind with a hand broom. He then took the swept up debris outside and chucked it into the woods on the edge of the clearing, back into nature's hands.

Wiping his hands on his shorts, Rezzie nodded at the job well done, "Well, that's one less thing that I have to do today. Wonder what dad and Ivy are up to with their training."

As he walked around to the other side of the house where the gardens and the larger clearing was, he saw his father and Ivy running drills and calisthenics. From the looks of things, they appeared to be having a good time and that they were bonding well. Rezzie scoffed at it all. He loathed his father for not being able to properly connect with him on the same level as his sister, and he envied Ivy for having what he didn't.

On the other side of the coin, it felt like too much noise for him if he did. He tended to prefer his own company most of the time so he didn't mind much at all being alone. His mother was somewhat the same way. Maybe it was something in the genetics, a disposition for solitude. But because of his own social deficit he had very little friends. Then again, it would be a surprise to have any friends if you lived atop of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

Realizing that he needed to cool off and get his head right, he let out a sigh and went back inside the garage. Whenever the boy needed to get his head straight, he always went off into the surrounding woods by himself. However, the woods aren't a safe place to be in for longer than he had to, especially for a child. Deciding to carry some sort of protection with him, he rustled through the tools and found a sheathed black-handled machete mixed among them. Strapping it to his belt, he felt more secure. Leaving a note on the key rack letting his family know where he was off to and when he will be back, he set himself off into wilds to regain his senses.

The forest was filled with tall, winding oak trees that were spaced out so openly that someone could drive a minivan through there with ease without crashing. It was mostly because Rezzie's family owned the surrounding woods for a mile all around the farmhouse and years ago his father took measures in clearing out hundreds upon hundreds of trees so they could have an easier time hunting and traversing the wilds. Even without the clearing, Rezzie would've still been able to adventure through the thick without much difficulty. The forests were his domain.

After several minutes of walking, Rezzie came off to a clearing in the middle of the woods just 100 yards off from the property line. This place was his personal slice of the universe, the place where he goes to in order to be alone with his thoughts and feelings. In the clearing was a large tree stump were a massive oak tree once stood that acted as a sort of table. Placed around them were large logs that were positioned to be used as chairs to sit in. The boy took in a deep breath of the dew-soaked scent of bark and wood that stained the air around him, and with that his worries and his negative thoughts just went away altogether.

"Well, I guess it's time to do some training of my own," Rezzie said as he looked around to make sure no one was watching.

Removing the machete from his belt, he drew the blade from his sheath and placed the hard leather sheath on the stump. Rezzie never had much affinity when it came to self defense and combat. While his father spent his time teaching Ivy about the self defense training he got during his tenure in the military, the boy had to learn on his own without any proper help or guidance. Most of the stuff he learned was from watching old martial arts movies that showed up on the television once in a while when he got the chance to watch it. However, while he wasn't much good in hand to hand combat, he did excel when it came to weapons combat; specifically with swords. His father was always annoyed with him practicing with sticks he would find lying around, calling his actions stupid. But as for Rezzie, he couldn't get enough of it.

Rezzie moved through the motions that he observed and practiced, practicing different spinning strikes, pirouettes and thrusts. The machete swung through the air cleanly with each motion that he made. Spinning the blade in his hand and grasping it with a reverse grip, he leapt into the air, spun a fluid 360 in midair before stabbing the machete blade clean in the center of the stump with a falling stab. The machete blade sunk over half a foot into the stump, cracking the wood slightly around the point of contact.

As Rezzie touched down on the wet stump after the downward stab, he slipped up on his footing and tumbled off the stump and landed face first into the ground in a heap. As he got up, he spat out a wad of dirt that ended up in his mouth and got back up on his feet. Dusting himself off, he stepped back up atop of the stump and tried to pry the blade free from the center of the stump. However, he couldn't get it out no matter how hard he pulled.

Grunting in frustration, he kept pulling and whispering to himself, "Pry…free…you son of a…bitch!"

With a final hard yank, he was able to finally free the machete from the stump with a wet thunk. However, the momentum that was still left over nearly caused Rezzie to lose his footing again as he balanced for a minute on the edge of the stump before regaining his footing properly. Taking a sharp swing through the air like a samurai in order to shake off any sort of remaining residue and wood-stained dew off the blade, he wiped the blade dry off on his shorts and picked up the leather sheath in order to holster the machete. But before he could finish the deed, he heard a deep, dark gurgle come up from behind him that caused him to freeze in place like a statue.

"Damn the Gods…" Rezzie mouthed to himself in pure disdain, "please be a frog, please be a frog, please be a frog…"

Rezzie, very slowly, turned around to face the source of the noise to see what he was up against. And when he saw what made that noise, he almost lost composure. On all fours was a large brown bear, poised and ready to attack at any given moment. With a heave, it rose up on its hind legs, standing almost seven feet tall, and eyeballed what could be very well its next meal with a carnivorous intent.

The boy was now in a serious bind. He knew the forest well and was certainly fast enough to take his chances of running away, but he could only avoid the bear for so long until he would run out of stamina and stop running. While he did have his machete, he never fought a bear before so he didn't know how fast it could strike in combination with it's immense strength. He was far away from the house, so calling for help would take a while. He then eyed the ground beneath them; it was thick, granular and wet enough to be packed easily.

Rezzie decided on his plan. As the bear lunged forward to take a massive swipe at the boy, he dove out of the way and rolled to a kneeling position several feet away. Scooping up a huge chunk of wet dirt in his free hand, he chucked it as hard as he could right into the bear's face. The dirt ball nailed home right into the bear's eyes, causing the lumbering animal to claw at its own face in order to free himself from his temporary blindness.

Seeing his moment to run, the boy bolted as fast as he could through the woods, dodging and weaving around and over fallen trees and overhanging branches. As he ran for dear life, he started shouting into the air as loud as he could in order to call for help:

"Dad! Daaadddd!" Rezzie shouted at the top of his lungs every ten seconds or so as he ran, his voice filled with terror.

As he continued to run, he heard from behind him the fast-paced, thudding noises of a now angry brown bear charging after him. Fortunately, the boy had a steady head start on the animal so it would take it a few seconds for the bear to actually catch up with him. Weaving in a zig-zag pattern through the woods on the way back to the farmhouse, he started swinging at numerous low-hanging branches and small trees with the machete in order to obstruct the bear's path no matter how slight he possibly could. While the bear was able to plow through the feeble defenses with ease, it had to take just a very slight moment to get through them, not even a tenth of a second. But Rezzie knew that any time he could accumulate for himself will add up and could very well save him from certain death.

However, his luck took a bad turn as he accidentally came up to a solid wall of cliff that went up for almost 50 feet. At that moment, the bear was starting to gain on Rezzie and in the next several seconds it was going to attack the boy right there on the spot. Turning around to face the charging bear, he realized that he wasn't going to be able to outrun the bear any longer. He was going to have to gamble everything he could on trying to kill the bear.

Taking up a combat stance with the machete, he saw as the bear finally came into view in front of him. It surged forward and came headfirst at the boy in order to take a massive bite out of him. At the same time, Rezzie's irises glowed a blood orange as a similar colored light surged around him, catching the bear by surprise for a split second. As the light enveloped the machete blade, Rezzie lunged forward, roaring as he swung the blade down as hard as he could down on the bear's head with all the strength that he had in his body.

—

Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse Ivy and her father just finished their calisthenics and wakeboard workouts on the trampoline that they had in the backyard. They were unaware of everything that was gong on so far with Rezzie off in the woods. As the girl leapt off the trampoline and landed softly on her feet, her father spoke with a look of approval on his face.

"All right, that'll be all for today. You can rest for now and we'll get back to it again in the afternoon," her father spoke with sternness in his voice.  
"Sure, dad," Ivy complied before she paused and asked, "I know you wanted to wait until Rezzie was here for this, but can you tell me what you wanted to talk to us about?"  
"Well, I suppose there's no harm in that. Either way you both will know at the end of the day," her father stroked his beard in thought before speaking, "your great-grandmother is going to be moving into a retirement home in the next few weeks, so her home is going to be vacant. Rather than selling it off to the highest bidder, she decided that your mother and I can move the family towards the capitol and live there instead."

Ivy had a look of excitement and surprise on her face. Their family only ever gone to the capitol to visit her father's side of the family only during the holidays, but in the end that was all that they did. But to live there in a house that is already been paid for would be a huge bolster both in lifestyle and in opportunities, not just for the family but for herself and her wakeboard career. She can think of dozens of different academies and sites where she can practice her craft and be able to get in as much training and riding time as she wants.

"That sounds like a great idea!" Ivy exclaimed as she hopped up in down in excitement, "and I know Rezzie will love the idea as well-"  
"Wait, what the heck is that noise? Her father held his hand up in order to silence his daughter and listen with full concentration.

Suddenly they heard faint shouting from the distance, gradually growing louder as if it was coming closer towards the house. At first they weren't able to make out what exactly what the noise was, as it was muffled from being far away as well as coming from the forest. But as it was gradually becoming clearer, it revealed to be none other than Rezzie's voice coming from the distance. And judging by the tone of his voice, he sounded absolutely terrified.

Ivy's father looked alarmed as he sprung into action, a look of horror on his face. He knew the wilds weren't a safe place to be in, even though that he tried his best to make it so with all the efforts to make the forests in their property line a controlled environment. But every now and then, something could blunder its way into their part of the world and cause some form of havoc. While he could trust his son to go into the woods safely, accidents could ways happen.

"REZZIE!" Ivy's father exclaimed before turning to her, "Ivy, stay right where you are. I'm going to get my gun!"  
"Wait what?" Ivy asked, confused.

As her father sprinted into the house, Ivy was in confusion. Her brain wasn't initially grasping that her brother was potentially in mortal danger. But, just as the thought registered in her mind, she saw something that rendered it blank once more, this time with shock. A loud explosion and a bright light jetted out through the forest and shot high into the sky. Then, a heavy shock-wave from the light bent the trees back and scoured across the entirety of the hill and the farmhouse. All the windows and glass in the farmhouse shattered into pieces and ivy was thrown backwards into the air, flipping through the air before landing belly-first on the ground ten yards from where she originally stood.

Getting up off her feet slowly and groggily, she saw as he father staggered out of the house with a 30-30 rifle in his hands as well as her mother, who looked confused and beside herself. Clearly they was dazed by the shock-wave as well. When the light faded, all that was left was a large cloud of smoke that rose up into the air.

"What the hell was that, Hunter? That sounded like a bomb just went off over there in the woods!" Ivy's mother, "By the Gods, I hope Rezzie is all right…"  
"More like a damn nuke," the father looked towards the direction off the smoke, "I'm going down there. Lynn, call the cops!"  
"Okay!"

With a burst of adrenaline and speed, Hunter rushed out towards the source of the explosion, tearing into the woods. He didn't care for a second that he was blindly tearing his way through the forest and cutting himself on the low-lying branches and bushes. He didn't even care that his gun was knocking into obstacles and getting scuffed and dirty. All he cared about at that moment was the safety and well being of his son.

He knew he never really spent as much time with Rezzie as much as he did with Ivy. It was mostly his fault on that matter. They never exactly had much in common to begin with, and they never had any real joy in each other's people that see them together often did say that Ivy takes after him while Rezzie takes after his mother. But he tried his best to love his children equally.

After tearing through the woods, he finally came to the end of the treeline where the source of the explosion was. What he saw as nothing like he ever seen before in his life. The entire area was absolutely desolate, not an ounce of flora and fauna in the blast zone in sight. The edge of the clearing was coated in a hard layer of blood orange glass. All the ground, all the trees, even all the leaves on the trees were glassed over. However, he couldn't see head or tails of his son anywhere.

"Rezzie!" the father called out as he was looking through the wasteland, "Rezzie where are you!?'  
"I'm…over hear, dad…" the father heard the voice of his son on his left.

The father turned around to see Rezzie stagger towards him from the edge of ground zero, absolutely disoriented. Apart from a few scratches, which could possiblybe sourced from tearing through the woods, he was virtually unhurt. The father ran towards his son and embraced him as hard as he could.

"Oh thank the Gods, I thought you were dead!" the father exclaimed, relieved out of his mind, "'Are you all right?"  
"Dad, where are we?" asked Rezzie, confused out of his mind, "I remember being at the homestead, and the next I'm waking up outside of…dad, what the hell happened here?"  
"Wait, you don't remember anything that happened here?" as he saw his son shook his head, the father released his embrace, looked around and answered, "Well, our property used to be a small battlefield from the Old War long ago. I'm guessing maybe an animal or something stepped on some sort of landmine out here and torched the place. You're one lucky bastard to survive this, much less come out untouched."  
"I guess so, " Rezzie nodded, accepting the story as what it could be, "I don't think we're safe here anymore."  
"I agree. That's why we're going to be moving to the capitol, "the father watched as his son's eyes widened, "Originally it was to move into Nana's house since she's moving into a retirement home, but this will be the new reason. The best reason. Sounds about right to you?"  
"Yeah, definitely."  
"Good, now let's go home."

As the two started walking away from the blast zone and started into the woods, they made their way back home. Not once did they ever consider to look towards the center of the clearing. In the middle was a dead bear slumped on its side, eviscerated and glassed over just like the rest of the area. And lodged in the ground in front of it was the machete Rezzie was wielding, faintly glowing and pulsating with a blood orange flame like a heartbeat.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One – The Freelancer**  
 **—**

Rezzie was leaning against the side of a car, waiting patiently while occasionally checking the time on his phone. He was in the suburbs of some neighborhood five miles from where he lived and the afternoon sun was beating down on his head. Since it was still in the middle of the week, everyone else was mostly either at school or at work. Very few people were at their homes, and the ones that were stayed there minding their own business.

This particular morning had been a drag for the young man because he was early to the destination and he had no other option but to wait there until the time comes. As Rezzie checked his cell phone again, he let out a grunt in annoyance. Wiping a beat of sweat from his brow, he looked around again and shook his head.

"Seven years being here and I still can't get a grasp on their time frames," Rezzie whispered to himself, "Dammit, Nesha, where the hell are you?"

While Rezzie had been a resident in the capitol for the entirety of his teenage years, he still had a hard time getting adjusted to the modern life. While he made a lot more friends that he did back in the woods and the homestead, he didn't have many in his eyes; about only half a dozen. Sure, having that many friends would be considered normal for a young adult in this day and age, it felt off to him. That was probably him just trying to still adjust to modern life.

As for friends, it was the reason why he was there now. His friend and the guy's older brother, Nesha and Titan, had lately been dealing with a deadbeat that had been mooching and stealing off food and money off of them and their family. And when Nesha tried to call in for recompense, the guy refused to do so. Rather than getting law enforcement involved like a normal person, Nesha decided to play the role of a loan shark and deal with him personally. And atop of that, he hired Rezzie and one other friend of his to be his muscle in case things don't go as planned.

So now here Rezzie is, waiting a few houses away from where this guy lived waiting for Nesha to get there. They planned to pay him a visit while his parents were still at work. He didn't judge about that since he still lived with his bad news is that if things get out of hand, he could get arrested. The only good thing to come out of this is that the deadbeat they're going after doesn't know who he is. And as long as he keeps his face from being exposed, as he wore a hat and sunglasses, it'll stay that way.

After ten minutes, Rezzie looked up from his phone and sighed in relief, "Finally those jerk-wads show up."

Coming into the neighborhood, a burgundy minivan nearly avoided hitting a mailbox and parked on the other side of the street. Out of the van, three guys stepped out of it. The first was a large, obese young man that was a head taller than Rezzie and twice as heavy. He wore a dark blue shirt, black basketball shots and a pair of black sneakers. Rezzie recognized him as Titan, Nesha's older brother.

The second guy he didn't recognize, but he was positive that was the the other one that Nesha paid to be his enforcer. He wore a black heavy metal t-shirt, dark gray jean shorts and black sneakers as well. On his face he wore a pair of spectacles that were lightly scratched from just being around for years on end. In his hand was a aluminum bat.

The third guy was Nesha, who looked like he was ready to fight at the drop of a hat. He had a trimmed goatee, a heavy metal tank top, baggy black jeans and black combat boots that tucked the jeans in. In each hand was an aluminum bat held in a reverse grip. The young man looked over at Rezzie and the three approached him, cordially.

"Nesha-freaking-maru," Rezzie greeted as he approached his friend and held his arms out for an embrace, "how the hell are you?"  
"Rezzie, you beast, what is up?" Nesha embraced Rezzie before motioning to the second man, "Oh crap, I forgot my manners. Rezzie, this is Smith. He's a friend of mine, same as you. Smith, this is Rezzie. You two are gonna hate each other," Nesha chuckled a bit as he handed one of the aluminum bats over to Rezzie.  
As he took the bat from Nesha, he looked over at Smith while cocking his head, "So, I take it that you're a guitar nut like he is right?"  
"Damn straight!" Smith grinned at the shorter man, "been playing since my single digits. So, Nesha told me a lot about you-"  
"Hang on, man, let's walk and talk. I want to get this nasty bit of business out of the way before things start getting too hot outside. Starting to sweat my ass off as it is," Rezzie looked over at Nesha and Titan, who were just standing around aimlessly, so he clapped at them to get their attention, "Nesha, Titan, get your asses in gear. You want us to get your money back or do you want us to get heat stroke?"  
"Sorry, our minds wandered off," Titan spoke, rubbing the back of his head, "Let's go."

As the four men started their way down the street, Rezzie began to have thoughts on the matter. Normally, when he did odd jobs as a freelancer, he often did stuff like cutting people's lawns, assist in construction projects, helping people move out of their houses into new ones, being a delivery boy. Anything that paid decently that needed a strong body to do the work. But this felt like something out of his element, something dark that maybe he shouldn't be dealing with.

Smith decided to pick yo where they left off earlier, "So, as I was saying before, I hear that you and your dad are rock music nuts as well, right"  
Before Rezzie could even speak, Nesha decided to speak for him; a common occurrence"Oh hell yeah, he and his dad have all sorts of music. You know how you brag about having 1000 songs on your iPod?"  
"Yeah, took a long-ass time to do."  
"Well, his dad has his with over 15000 songs on his, most of them very old rock bands. Aerosmith, Pantera, Rammstein, you name it he's got it. And he can fit in a whole lot more."  
Smith's eyes widened in surprise, "Holy crap, that's a lot of music. That must've taken a long time to get all that processed."  
"Took two weeks to get the CD's transferred over to the computer," Rezzie answered, but he decided to take the conversation to a different turn, "Hey, Nesha, I got some questions about the job that have been bugging me a bit."  
Nesha raised his eyebrow at him out of curiosity, "Yeah, what about it?"  
"Aren't you worried about the ramifications behind this? If things turn out ugly, it might come back to bite us in the ass," Rezzie explained, expressing his concerns, "The reason I took the job is because he's a scumbag who needs a reality check.  
"I understand that you're being cautious about all of this, but you need to be a little more bold about things in life," Nesha waved the matter off, "You can't be afraid to take a little bit of risk in life."  
 _"Yeah, but that typically doesn't involve bashing some douchebag's head in with a baseball bat…"_ Rezzie pondered to himself before speaking, "Well, we'll do it your way. Hope it's worth it."

After a couple more minutes of walking, they finally made it to the end of the neighborhood where the target's house was located. It was a light tan house with a dark brown roof that was heavily bleached over from overexposure to the sun. The front lawn looked overgrown, a sign that the people living here didn't have any idea how to maintain their property efficiently. Rezzie took a breath and cringed slightly. The area reeked of ammonia, not a good sign. From the front window came the sounds and lights of the television being on.

As the quartet of teenagers approached the front door of the house, the air felt a bit tense. While they weren't the type to back down from their tasks, they were anticipating the worst to come from all of this. Nesha walked up right to the front door of the house and knocked on the door thrice before ringing the doorbell once. At first, nothing happened and the air was silent. No one was answering the door. The four looked among themselves before Titan decided to take a hand at opening the door.

Turning the door knob, the front door opened without any resistance. Rezzie found the matter strange as to why the door was unlocked like that. They weren't exactly in the forest or the countryside, nor were they in a low-crime area of the city. He wasn't sure as to why nor if he wanted to know.

Rezzie turned to Nesha with a look of uneasiness, "I got a bad feeling about this, man. This smells of trouble."  
"Well, may fortune favor the foolish," Titan patted on Rezzie and Nesha's shoulders before parting them and standing in front of the rest of the pack, "Randall! It's Titan and Nesha! We're coming in!"

The four walked into the house and the smell of cat urine gripped strong on them so strong that they wanted to gag. The house itself looked like a disaster, like something out of an episode of Hoarders. The place was littered with dirty dishes, clothes strewn about, even full bags of trash were tossed in the corner of the room. The worst part were the roaches that skittered about, as if they formed a large colony or multiple colonies in the cesspool of a house.

Rezzie felt disgusted being in this place. He couldn't believe someone could actually live like this. Sure, Nesha led him into some nasty parts of the city, and Nesha was a bit of a slob himself, but this took the proverbial cake. And he was definitely not the only one feeling this way, judging by the looks of everyone else's faces. Rezzie made it a personal note to double up on their agreed price when this was all said and done.

"By the Gods, who the hell lives here to make this place so trashed?" Smith asked incredulously.  
"Randall, a friend of his, the friend's girlfriend and their kid," Nesha answered, sifting past a torn trash bag strewn across the living room.  
"Wait, they have a kid living here?" Rezzie asked, his jaw dropping in shock, "How hasn't the Child Protection Services rendered this place asunder? This place looks like a freaking crack den."  
"Uhh, that's kinda because Randall and the people that live here smoke crack. A lot of crack, actually," Smith interjected, pausing for a moment to think of what to say next, "…all the crack."  
"As if I didn't know," grumbled Rezzie as he looked towards the door to the back patio, "So, should we just call the police on these guys instead of giving them an ass whooping?"  
"Yeah, that sounds about right," as Titan was giving his answer, Rezzie turned around and saw a man coming up from behind the over-sized man with a weapon, "c'mon, guys, let's get out of here and get the police involved in all of-"  
"LOOK OUT!"

Rezzie swooped around behind Titan, raised his bat up, and deflected what could've potentially been a crippling or lethal blow. That was when he got a full frontal look at the man. He was a head taller than Rezzie, with pasty white skin and greasy, matted black hair. His eyes were bloodshot and was wearing nothing but a pair of black basketball shorts. In his hands was a cheap-forged katana with barely a proper edge on it.

Giving a light push upward to expose a weakness in the man's guard, Rezzie delivered a side kick to the man's gut, causing him to tumble over the recliner chair and onto the floor. That was when things were on high alert. Another man, equally dressed but with long, red hair, came out of the bedroom wielding a sword of his own looking ready to fight as well. Nesha chucked a lamp at that man before he and Smith scurried out onto the back yard. Nathan stepped away from the fray, merely observing from the sidelines.

"Lemme guess, you're Randall?" asked Rezzie as he motioned to the black-haired man, sizing him up.  
"Yeah, the hell are you all doing in my house?" Randall slowly rose, gripping onto the sword.  
"You sure this is a house or a crack den? Cause you clowns got a lot more to worry about than misdemeanor trespassing. Not sure you know, but you owe Nesha and Titan a lot of money. And judging by how wired you are, I'd got a hunch as to where it's been going towards."  
"Well, I know where this is going towards!" Randall threatened with his sword before rushing at Rezzie again.  
"Good grief," groaned Rezzie as he took a stance with the bat.

Randall cocked his arm back and took a swing at Rezzie, only to be blocked yet again with the aluminum bat with ease. The blade started to groan from the strain, a noise that Rezzie was quick to notice. Most can tell the difference between combat-ready swords and display swords are the type of steel that they use – high-carbon steel for the former and stainless steel for the latter. He was fortunate that this was a cheap display sword, otherwise the fight would be going on a lot longer with far more caution than he was displaying now.

Deciding to draw the fight outside the house, Rezzie wall ran over the couch before leaping off and landing outside the living room. Coming at him like a mad bull, Randall rushed forward and attempted to tackle him to the ground. However, Rezzie leapfrogged over the drug addict, causing him to tumble out the front door of the house onto the front lawn. The bat-wielding enforcer took the opportunity to get outside as well, and waited patiently as Randall rose back up to his feet.

Now that they were in wide open territory with room to move around, Rezzie was far more nimble and on the move. Randall was taking swing after swing at him, trying to hack away at the man. However, Rezzie was effortlessly dodging and weaving past every blow. He didn't even bother trying to attack, all he was doing was reading Randall's movements and blocking every once in a while if need be. At the same time, he was luring the drug addict closer towards the street where he felt confident he could finish him effectively.

After a minute, Randall's body became sweaty and his movements became slower and more sluggish. It seemed out in high heat, the larger man's stamina was becoming sapped as he constantly kept swinging and missing. Rezzie, since he made as few offensive movements as possible, still had stamina to spare. Once he felt confident in being able to finish Randall off, he would do so swiftly and brutally.

The difference between them in terms of fighting ability were so staggering it could be seen by the untrained eye. Randall may have been the taller man, the larger man, but his lack of stamina and endurance due to lack of training made it apparent that he would burn out in the long haul. Rezzie, however, had been training himself and kept in excellent shape. The chances to him burning out at the same rate as Randall was was very slim.

Panting, Randall took one last swing at Rezzie, and that was when he acted. Blocking the strike, he swung the bat upward towards Randall's hand and wrist holding the sword, aiming to disarm the man of his weapon. As the bat connected, he saw as the drug addict's right thumb snapped in half, breaking the man's hand. The sword got flung up in the air and Randall clutched his hand in shock, horrified at the new development. A leg sweep caused the disarmed man to fall forward face-first onto a metal grate that was on the sidewalk, which was piping hot from being out in the sun all day.

Seeing his chance to finish him, Rezzie leapt atop of drug addict and pressed his face on the metal grate as hard as he can, holding it there for as long as possible. The sounds that Randall made of him screaming and yelling in pain and agony were borderline horrific as the left side of his face started to cook and burn like a piece of steak from being pressed on that sun-baked grate. After about half a minute, Randall went quiet as he passed out from the shock and pain. Deciding that enough was enough, he let go of the unconscious man and rose to his feet, trying not to breathe in the smell of cooked flesh. The whole mess was enough to make him feel a little bit sick. At that moment, the drug addict's sword finally returned to terra firma and broke into pieces on the pavement

Turning around, he saw Titan, Nesha and Smith come out of the house, the two panting in exhaustion. Nesha had a few scuff marks and a couple of gashes on his body where he got nicked by the redhead's sword. Smith, however, looked like he just went full bore. Nesha looked over at the unconscious Randall and cringed a bit a the smell of burnt flesh. It took them a coupe of seconds to register the severity of their actions before Titan finally spoke.

"Dude, you screwed him up bad, man," Titan said, shocked at what he saw.  
"Believe me, I took no pleasure in that," Rezzie said as he handed the bat over to Nesha, "What about the ginger? Hopefully you guys didn't kill him."  
"Don't worry, he's still alive. We only just knocked him out in the backyard," Smith answered, motioning to Nesha, "this guy gassed out partway through and got cut a few times. Luckily the sword that he was using was a cheap blade or we'd have to be taking him to the ER."  
"Fair enough. You gonna be okay patching yourself up?" Rezzie asked, concerned over the state of his friend.  
"Oh yeah, definitely. I've had worse than this," chuckled Nesha as he patted himself over, "give me a few days and some band-aids and I'll be all right."  
"Be sure to not let those cuts get infected. So, what do we do from here?"  
"Let's get the hell out of dodge before the cops show up," Titan answered, "last thing we want is to get snatched up by them."'  
"Understood, we'll keep our heads down and reconvene over at my place in a few days," Rezzie replied before turning to Smith, "you never been there before, so Nesha can give you the address."  
"Sure thing. Also, I definitely owe you two big time after all of this," Nesha chuckled in relief, "seriously, thank you."  
"Not so fast, man. The situation's changed; the original price isn't gonna cut it this time," Rezzie crossed his arms, frowning and stood side by side with Smith, "I grilled that guy's head into a brisket. You owe us both double, no exception."  
"Well, since you put it that way, I suppose it's fair," Titan sighed before relenting, "Double it is."  
"Oh hell yes, thank god for that," Smith laughed before asking, "But yeah, why the hell are we standing around for with our thumbs up our asses. Let's get the hell out of here!"

The four split up and went their separate way, with Rezzie going off on his own on foot while the three ran to their van. After getting in, the trio peeled out of the neighborhood and drove off. Rezzie, however, hopped the stone wall that bordered the neighborhood they were in and landed out on the city street on the other side. Keeping a casual but brisk walk, he walked down the street towards the way back home.

Meanwhile, he was reflecting on what went down. To sum it up, he broke into someone's house, fought one of its residents, broke his thumbs, and to top it all off he melted the side of his head to a metal grate onto the sidewalk. He probably gave the man second-third degree burns and definitely disfigured his face. If he got caught, he'd probably be looking at some jail time, possibly prison depending on how ornery the jury was. The only things that were his saving grace was that he didn't know his name or his face, and since Rezzie was wearing gloves he didn't leave fingerprints either. But oddly enough, because the guy was a crackhead and a thief, he didn't feel as bad as he thought he should've.

What concerned him the most was what Nesha mentioned inside, about there being a child living there. He had to wonder what kind of people would be so dense as to expose a child to that kind of living. On one hand, he shouldn't get involved like that, leave things as they are. On the other hand, since he already got a hand in all of this, he might as well see things through to the end. He figured he might as well at that point.

After about three minutes of walking down the street, he came up to a gas station that was was on his right the corner of a street intersection. It seemed to be getting a fair bit of business. 20 feet to the side in front of the gas station was a payphone. It looked in half-decent shape and appeared operable.

And that was when Rezzie got an idea in his head. He did feel a moral obligation to call the police and have the residents arrested for drug charges. On the other hand, he didn't want to incriminate himself or his friends after breaking into someone's house and beating the daylights out of them. So he planned to use the payphone to make an anonymous call to the police, lie about his name, and skedaddle. As he walked up to the payphone, he tried to be as cool and collected as possible.

Fishing some quarters out of his pocket, he popped them into the payphone and punch in the police call number As the phone rang a few times to try to get into contact with them, Rezzie took in a deep breath in order to calm himself down and brace himself for what's to come. He wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing or not but he decided to go with his gut on this one.

After a few more rings, a man on the other line picked up to answer, "This is the Capitol Police Department, what's your emergency?"  
"Yes, I want to report a noise complaint coming from Dogwood Hills," Rezzie masked his voice to sound deeper and more nasally, "there seems to be some sort of gang activity going on towards the end of the neighborhood because I heard a whole bunch of shouting and fighting going on over there," Rezzie paused before adding, "I think there might be drugs involved."  
"I see. And may I get a name and an address to get a hold of you by for further questioning?" asked.  
The freelancer didn't even skip a beat in his lie, "My name is Lucas Gallagher. I'm a homeless man residing at the local shelter on Nebraska," Rezzie knew that street was a low-income street filled with dregs and criminals, so he assumed a homeless shelter could possibly be in there.  
"All right, police dispatch will be in Dogwood Hills in a few minutes."  
"Thank you. I have to go, have a nice day."

Rezzie hung up the phone, and stared blankly at it while being beside himself. He couldn't believe the audacity he had to do all of that. Gulping, he decided what's done is done and that he had made his should the time to lie in it, he wasn't going to shrink away from it. Holding his head high, he headed back home, feeling a sensation of guilt and dread hang over him as hot as the afternoon sun.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two – Work From Home**  
 **—**

As the alarm went off on the alarm clock, Rezzie groggily woke up and turned it off by hitting the giant top button that turns it off. He wasn't able to really get much sleep last night due to restless sleep. It wasn't a particularly pleasant aspect of his as he preferred to get a decent amount of sleep at night. However, he had to play with the hand he was dealt.

It had been a couple of days since he did that odd job and he still couldn't get it off of his mind. His actions and the events that went down that day lingered on inside of him. It was a mix of pity, guilt, and conflict. He didn't know the full story behind their way of life. He didn't know what was right in the situation and he certainly didn't know what was best. All he knew what was he did know and what he didn't know. All he can do is let the emotions pass by with time and use this as a lesson for the future.

Out of nowhere, the alarm went off blaring again out of the blue again, much to Rezzie's annoyance. He forgot to disarm the alarm after shutting it off, and since he didn't it went to standby to be activated again. After hitting the alarm, Rezzie got up out of bed and rubbed his temples and ears in pain. The high-pitched noises that the alarm made were painful to him, borderline unbearable at times. But it was the only noise capable that could end up waking him up out of deep sleep against his will.

Looking at the time, he saw that it was past eight o'clock. Going over to his closet, he slipped on a pair of black swim trunks and a black tank top with orange and white lining. Stepping out of his bedroom, he walked down the hallway and could smell the aroma of pancake batter in the air. Rezzie knew that was his father's cooking -he practically grew up on it.

Entering the kitchen, he saw as his father was making a batch of waffles in the waffle iron. Back in the forests, his mother typically stayed home while his father worked in construction. Now that they moved down here in the capitol, things have changed. After his father got a stroke that activated a repressed Hepatitis C virus in his body, his liver was gradually killing him while at the same time punishing him severely if he ate even the slightest amount of sugar. This left him medically unfit to work.

So now while his mom works at a computer job for a fashion designer company, dad stays home and takes care of everything in the house. Rezzie's mother loves it because of the fact that he's home all the time and doesn't have to travel anywhere like he did back in their old way of living. However, his father never was able to adjust to modern living, having grown so fond of the open air, the vast groves and the fresh oxygen. Maybe there will come a time he will be able to return back there someday.

Rezzie's father noticed his son come into the kitchen, giving him a small smile, "Hey, buddy, you had a good rest?"  
"It was all right, I guess. Not as good as I hoped it would," answered Rezzie as he rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, "I'm gonna put some coffee in the pot. You think mom is gonna want some or no?"  
"She might as long as it's not the flavored stuff that you like drinking," his father opened up the iron and plopped the cooked waffles on a ceramic plate where he had a few others that were already made before Rezzie got up, "I think we still have some dark roast in the cupboard, she likes drinking that."  
"Already got it," Rezzie pulled out the dark brown plastic bag of coffee grounds out of one of the cupboards, "the waffles smell really good, dad. When will they all be ready?"  
"Thanks, they'll be ready In a few minutes. Go set the table once you get the coffee brewing, and put out the butter and syrup, too."  
"Sure thing, dad."

As Rezzie was preparing the coffee maker and the pot to get coffee brewing, his father had to step to the side in for a second in order to pour more batter into the waffle iron before closing it. When he stepped aside, Rezzie finished preparing the maker and turned it on to get the coffee brewing. By the time that the coffee would be done, he'll have the table set and ready.

Pulling out plates, cups, napkins, forks and knives, he prepared three places at the kitchen table, one for himself and both of his parents. He then opened the fridge, took out the butter and the sugar free syrup, and put them out in the center of the table. Finally, he pulled out a pitcher of milk and filled up his father's glass before sealing it back up and putting it back in the fridge. Since he and his mother were both having coffee, he kept their glasses empty for the meantime.

At that moment, the coffee machine beeped on to signify that the coffee was done brewing and a pot was ready to be drunk. Taking out two packets of creamer and four packets of sugar out of the cupboard, he tore them open and dumped the contents in there before taking the pot and pouring half the contents made into his cup. At that moment, his mother came into the kitchen half-asleep, having been woken up by the scent of breakfast that had earlier drawn Rezzie in.

"Hey, honey, you had a good night?" Rezzie's father asked with a smile on his face.  
"Yeah," his wife answered before hugging her husband, then giving Rezzie a kiss on the cheek, "and how are you doing, Rezzie?"  
"Doing fine, mom," Rezzie hugged his mom with a smile on his face; he always was a bit of a momma's boy, "you gonna join us for breakfast today?"  
"Eh, I'm just not feeling it right now. I think I'll skip it for today. Maybe mom will have some when she comes back from work," his mother answered, "she does get back from work in a few minutes."  
"You sure about that? Because these are smelling pretty damn good," Rezzie's mother pouted a bit at her husband before he nodded, "I'm just screwing with you. I'll save your share for Sarah."

As Rezzie's mother went into the garage to smoke a cigarette, right on cue the front door opened up. An old lady with dark skin and silver hair, looking to be in her mid sixties walked into the house and locked the door behind her. She had a very kindhearted and peaceful expression on her face, mostly to be expected from one who is devout to inner peace.

Sarah Meraxus, Rezzie's grandmother on his mother's side, originally lived in St. Axis City several counties away from the farmhouse that Rezzie and his family resided, taking up work there as a surgical tech. When his family moved to the capitol, they invited her down to live with them and keep the entire family in one place. Two years after the invite, when she got done making the arrangements for her to transfer to the night shift at the general hospital in the capitol, she moved down and lived with them. Now she's been there ever since.

As she entered the kitchen, Rezzie perked his attention to her, "Hey, grandma, how are you?"  
"Oh I'm doing just fine," his grandmother soothed as she gave Rezzie a hug before hugging her son-in-law, "and how're you doing today?"  
"So far so good," answered Rezzie's father before asking, "you want to join us for breakfast? We're having waffles."  
"Sure, I would love to. I could smell them cooking all the way from the driveway," the old woman chuckled, "let me get my shoes off and my stuff put away real quick then we'll eat."  
"Of course."

The old woman took her shoes off in the garage, hugged and greeted her daughter while she was in there, and came back and hung her jacket at one of the chairs set at the kitchen table. Rezzie's father set the freshly-cooked waffles on the kitchen table before he and Rezzie sat down and got themselves comfortable.

As they got their plates loaded up with breakfast, Rezzie turned to his grandmother and spoke, "So, any stories from work tonight you wanna tell us?" Rezzie always loved talking with his grandmother about her time at work because nearly each day was a completely different story.  
"Well, we had a patient come in last night with glass jelly jar jammed and broken up his rectum," she explained, causing her grandson to grimace in disgust, "from what he told us in his drunken stupor, he did it on a bet with his friends. Problem is his body broke it while it was in there. It took us all night to pull the broken pieces out of there, and when I left to go home, they were still working on patching up his lower intestines and his butt hole. It will likely take them all morning to patch all of that up because it looked like tattered cloth."  
After processing the story, the table was silent before Rezzie said with disdain, "I can't believe humans are so freaking stupid…"

For the next few minutes, they ate their breakfast without much in the way of talking. Rezzie, who was always a faster eater than most, finished his plate first and put the messy dishes he used in the sink to be washed. He had a pretty good arrangement with his family; in exchange for not having to pay rent or bills, he would have to help out considerably around the house. He didn't mind it at all, since it would allow him to save his money.

Rezzie's father finished off the last bit of his breakfast before looking over at his son, "So, do you plan on doing any odd jobs today?"  
"No, I plan on heading over to Grandma Michelle's to cut her yard. It's been a couple of weeks so I'm sure it needs to be done," Rezzie answered, taking his father's dishes and putting them in the sink as well.  
"You know, you need to find yourself an actual job instead of all this freelancer crap," Rezzie's father complained as he pointed at him, "I've done that in the past, and there are times it'll do you more harm than good."  
"The only reason I'm a freelancer at all right now because I haven't heard anything back from the places I applied to. All this online application garbage is so messed up. I assure you, once I get an actual job to pull through, I'll be good to go and only do odd jobs for side cash."  
"I'm sure you'll be able to do what you have to do," his grandmother spoke in an assuring tone as she finished her plate and put her empty dishes in the sink, "I've seen it first hand, especially with you young folk. There isn't much in the way of opportunity for you all like there used to."

Her words carried weight in this case. He's been having the hardest time in the world trying to find a job ever since he dropped out of medical school earlier in the year due to conflict of interests and stress. It was bad enough that the economy and the job market was in dire straits. But with the faulty online application servers and high cost of living, it was very difficult to get a decent job, much less a full time one, that can help make ends meet. So Rezzie decided to be a freelancer, which did pay good money when completed fast enough. The problem was that it was erratic, he could go days if not weeks without finding an odd job to do.

Rezzie decided to take his mind of the matter by taking care of the kitchen. Using dish soap and sink water, he cleaned up the dishes and tools that they used before rinsing them off. Then, he opened up the dishwasher and set them in there to not only dry but to be ran through the dishwasher once it's full. He then set the cleaned waffle iron in one of the lower cabinets underneath the kitchen counter. Closing the dishwasher, he grabbed a spray bottle of cleaner and a wash rag. Spraying down the kitchen counters, table, microwave door and the fridge doors, he wiped down everything he sprayed until they were dried off. He disregarded the trash for the time being, since he takes it out at night.

Going into the garage, he grabbed the keys to the shed off the key rack above the shoe dresser and closed the door behind him. Stepping outside to the back yard, he walked over to the shed at the corner of the back yard and unlocked the padlock sealing it together. Opening the shed double doors, he pulled out the necessary materials he needed to do the job: a push mower, a weed eater, a electric outdoor blower and an extension cord. Once he made sure the mower was filled with fuel and the weed eater was filled with premix, he loaded everything on top of the push mower and lugged it through the wooden gate separating the front and back yards before hauling them down the street.

The house they were living in was about a half dozen houses away from where his grandmother lived. One of the fringe benefits of living in the capitol was that most of their family lived there so they're always close by when something happens. The downside is that, in Rezzie's case, he isn't necessarily close with most of them so he often feels overexposed even when slightly in their presence.

After spending the next few minutes juggling around several pieces of lawn care equipment several hundred feet, he came up to his grandmother's house. His grandmother, Michelle, was a retired employee of the same fashion design agency that his mother worked at. Matter of fact, one of the reasons that his mother was hired was because of his grandmother. After her husband died last year to intestinal cancer, she had been in a travelling kick with her other retired friends that lived in the neighborhood. One could speculate that she travels to fill the void, but to Rezzie she is just living her life to the fullest.

After unloading everything on the sidewalk, he put on his headphones, cranked up some music, revved up the lawn mower and got to cutting. Normally, with a riding mower it would go by faster. However, Rezzie preferred the push mower because it was good exercise for him. After a little over an hour, he was done mowing both the front and the back yard. But before he could get started with weed eating and edging the yard, his grandmother came out the front door.

An older woman in her early seventies, she appeared to be in her fifties, bearing platinum blonde hair that was cut short and curled up naturally. She wore a pink t-shirt, white shorts and light tan flip-flops. One of the main traits of his grandmother's side of the family was the genetic decelerated aging that her side of the family possessed. Most people from her line have lived until they were almost a century or longer. If Rezzie played his cards right and kept a healthy and stress-free life, he would probably live that long as well.

Approaching her grandson, she waved to him as a greeting, "Hello! How're you, Rezzie?"  
"Doing all right so far, grandma," Rezzie answered, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm, "give me another half hour or so and I'll be done."  
"When you do, you want to come in and cool off? I'm sure you could use a drink."  
"Sure, I'll be in soon."

After she went back inside, Rezzie put on his clear work glasses and started up the weed eater. With careful precision, he edged the sidewalks, the garden beds and the concrete surface surrounding the swimming pool. When he got done, he rolled out the cord, plugged in the electric blower, and blew off the debris back into the lawn. After putting all of his tools into the back yard, he took the pool skimmer and scooped up any of the excess debris that ended up falling into the pool by mistake.

When he finally got done with that errand, he put away the pool skimmer and turned on the outdoor faucet that turned the water hose on. Using the hose, he sprayed off the lawn care equipment clean, steam rising off from still being hot from usage. Afterwards, he sprayed off his feet, turned off the faucet, and headed on inside his grandmother's house through the back patio door.

The living room that was connected to the back patio was large and expansive, designed to sit close to a dozen people with ease. It was expected, since every now and then they had large family gatherings among the family members that lived in the capitol. Connected to the side of it was a bar with four stools that separated the living room and the kitchen, which was nothing out of the ordinary. In the kitchen was his grandmother, who was rummaging through the fridge trying to find something to snack on.

"Hey, grandma, I'm done with your yard," Rezzie called to his grandmother, catching her attention.  
"Thank you, Rezzie," his grandmother nodded in gratitude before asking, "you want to have that drink now?"  
"That would be lovely, thank you," Rezzie answered as he sat down on the stool, "so, what do you got?"  
"I got water, juice, Gatorade, soda, Hetap," she rummaged through the fridge some more, "you probably need to replenish your electrolytes so I'll grab you a Gatorade."  
"Actually, I would kill for a Hetap. Hadn't had one in some time."  
"I'll grab one for myself, too," she pulled out two cans of Hetap and some boxed cookies that she usually keeps refrigerated, "I'll have to go out and get some more."  
"If you want, I can go get you more. I don't have much else better to do today."  
"Oh no, it's perfectly fine. I'll get some more the next time I'm out."

As Rezzie cracked open the lid and took a sip of the beverage, he felt the cool and delicious taste dance along his taste buds. It always was a refreshing thing to drink after a hot day in the sun. He remembered during his childhood grabbing some with his mother after getting off of school every Friday. The freelancer sighed with a small smile on his face as he remembered the good memory.

On the corner of the counter was yesterday's newspaper, lying neatly in the corner. Rezzie remembered that the newspaper for today hadn't come in yet, seeing as the delivery boy only comes in the afternoons now. He felt his curiosity be piqued as he finished the Hetap. Throwing the empty can in the trash, he reached over to the newspaper and scooted it over to himself. But before he could even open it, his jaw dropped at what was on the front.

One of the stories on the front page was the story regarding the incident that occurred over at Randall's place two days ago. He was surprised at how quickly that these reporters and the police moved in making all of this public. Rezzie's grandmother walked over and saw the story that he was intently reading.

"Family Summer Hindered by Drug Bust," his grandmother asked, "what do you think that is about?"  
"Let's see now," Rezzie cleared his throat before reading aloud, "A couple was arrested in Dogwood Hills around noontime Wednesday for the possession of a large quantity of crack, marijuana, and methamphetamine in their house. The young couple, Tora and Gayle Campbell, were arrested outside their home in Dogwood Hills late afternoon Wednesday after police were called to the residence. The husband was found semi-conscious with a concussion when police arrived and it revealed hours prior that there were signs of forced entry and an extremely heated struggle. The couple's daughter, Arianna, who has been going to private school, has been taken into the custody of her grandparents. The roommate of the couple, Randall Gates, who was responsible for most of the drug paraphernalia is still at large as the only thing they could find of him were bits of his face burnt to an electric box on the sidewalk. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. The chief of police reported that the attack could likely be tied to any of the local gangs, but so far have no evidence to go on as there were no witnesses at the time."

"Well isn't that something. A drug dealing family gets beaten, then busted," Rezzie's grandmother was surprised and amused, "about time the police were on the ball about all of this."  
"Yeah, about time. Let me finish reading this," Rezzie looked white as a sheet as he flipped a few of the pages to the other half of the story, "Local authorities in the Capitol City Police Department ascertained the location from an anonymous tip from homeless man Lucas Gallagher, who claimed to have heard signs of conflict from outside the neighborhood. Reporters and police tried to locate Gallagher for more information, but the search has been fruitless due to the cameras at the gas station that the call was made from were down for repairs that day."

Rezzie let out a sigh of relief at the last part of the article, something that his grandmother caught note of. In her eyes, her grandson did show a particularly keen interest in the newspaper article. Maybe he had some knowledge on the people involved in the matter that others did not. Deciding that asking is rather than simmering over the matter, she decided to speak her mind.

"is everything all right? You were looking a little gray for a minute, there," his grandmother asked, cocking her head in concern, "Do you know anything about this?"  
"Oh no, it's nothing like that. It's just that this is some heavy stuff," Rezzie brushed the matter off before rising up out of the stool, "nevertheless, I'm gonna head on home. Have a nice day, grandma."  
"Okay, have a nice day," his grandmother walked over and embraced him tightly, "you take care of yourself now."  
"I will, grandma. I will."

After returning the embrace, he released it and walked out the back door. Loading all of his tools on top of his mower, he gave a light heave and pushed them around to the front yard and down the street towards his house. Looking back over at the freshly cut yard from a distance, he felt satisfied in his work for the day. He was sure he'll have to come back in a week or two in order to cut it again, but it didn't matter because it was all the same to him.

As he was going down the road, he had a relieved expression on his face. The newspaper article had surprised him as they managed to nearly get away with everything clean. The break-in, the fighting, the beating. No one saw a thing, and Tora remembered nothing substantial about what happened, otherwise they would've given them up when he got arrested. And the police call that Rezzie made afterwards was the most shocking thing of all. He must've had some sort of luck for the cameras to be down in that gas station for the day. The police were now trying to chase Lucas Gallagher, a figment of Rezzie's imagination.

The only two things that bothered him were Randall and the child. From what he could guess, Randall must've managed to regain consciousness after the scuffle, peeled his face off that metal plate, and ran for his life the moment he heard sirens coming. While Rezzie could respect his level of self preservation, it showed him that there was no such thing as 'honor among thieves'. After all, he left that couple out to dry for the wolves to pounce on them. He was sure that Nesha and Titan were going to have their hands full with him now that he's on the run. He's sure to want payback since he didn't leave any brain cells behind with the burnt pieces of his face.

As for the child, that was a cruelty on his part, one that he'll have to live with. By his hand, he set the table for her parents to be taken away from her. She was going to a private school, one that was funded by the drug money that her parents accumulated. Despite having a hand in drugs, Rezzie couldn't deny the amount of risk and sacrifice they were taking in order to give their daughter a better life than what they lived. It was moving to him. Now she would have to leave her old life behind and go to a different school and a different way of life. Whether she will be able to go towards that better future is completely up in the air. Rezzie will be sure to remember this for the rest of his life.

But for now he had other plans. Pushing his lawn mower all the way back home, Rezzie thought forward towards tomorrow. He was to be expecting company that afternoon so he had to make plans as to what to do when they get there. He knows Nesha and Titan will be there, so he'll discuss what to do with Randall then. But nevertheless, he knows is that he couldn't wait for tomorrow to come.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three – Woodbrior Boys**  
 **—**

"Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!" Rezzie said repeatedly as he was picking up laundry off his floor, "Why on earth did I wait until now to get on this? Freaking stupid!"

The weekend has come and Rezzie was frantic. His friends would be over shortly, if not at any given moment, and his room was a disaster. His bed was unmade, there was laundry all over the floor, his desk was in a clutter, and he hadn't emptied his trash can. He had been putting it off for some time now, and it would be embarrassing for him to try and explain why his room was a wreck.

One of Rezzie's personal problems, to his own admission, is that he tends to be a slob when it comes to his bedroom. It was a problem that he's had ever since he was a child. While he certainly knows how to be organized and neat, he is just lazy and disorganized about it all. While he's known about this day to be coming for some time now, he has been putting it off so much over the last few days. Now that the chickens will be coming home to roost, he's regretting not getting on it sooner.

Repositioning his laundry hamper, he proceeded to force-feed the dirty laundry off from the floor into the hamper. Every so often he would push it in there with two hands in order to compress it and give it more room. After a couple of quick minutes, he got the last bit of the laundry off the floor and placed it in the corner of his room out of sight and out of mind. Maneuvering over to his desk, he straightened it up by doing things such as throwing away useless papers and putting pens and coins where they belong. In about five minutes, it looked as if there wasn't a train wreck recreated on the surface of his desk.

The next thing on his list was his bed. It looked in such a disarray with all the covers in one bundle in the center of the bed and pillows strewn about around it. Setting the pillows on the computer chair, he untangled the covers and laid them neatly atop of the bed. After making the bed, he uncovered the back end of the covers, put the first layer of pillows down, refolded the covers over the pillows before putting the larger sets of pillows on top. Smoothing over the surface, he got his bed made.

Finally, he approached his trash bin and pulled out the bag that was holding the garbage inside. Tying the bag up, he made his way over to the kitchen, opened the drawers underneath the sink, and tossed the bag into the kitchen trash can. Closing those drawers, he opened up another and pulled out a fresh trash bag and a spray can of lemon air freshener. Making his way back into his room, he put in the trash bag in his bin and sprayed the inside of his room with freshener. After several seconds, he looked around and nodded in satisfaction at a job well done. While it wasn't his best work, it looked pretty good for a rush job.

Exiting his room, he went towards the kitchen again and saw his mother there with a catalog for a pizza delivery joint. Whenever Rezzie had friends over for one of his get-togethers, he and his family typically order out and get food for all of them and Rezzie's friends. It varied from time to time with different delivery food services, but for the most part it was usually pizza.

Noticing her son entering the kitchen, she turned to him and asked, "Hey, Rezzie, how many people are we expecting today?"  
"About half a dozen or so," Rezzie answered as he put away the air freshener can "we got a half decent crowd today. No one flaked this time around."  
"All right, that sounds good to me. I think we'll get away with five or six pizzas. You got 40 dollars to cover the costs?"  
"Of course," Rezzie pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed her two twenty dollar bills, "That should be enough right?"  
"Yep, that will do it. Thank you. Is your room all spiffed up? You guys will be in there most of the time."  
"Yep, just got done with it a couple of minutes ago."  
"Very good. Once the food comes in, everything should be ready to go."  
"Thanks mom, you're the best."

Rezzie hugged his mom before heading on back into his room. He kept the door and the window open in order to air it out of any sort of odors that didn't get taken out by the spray. Deciding to do some last-minute maintenance, he approached the sword rack that was hanging above his laundry hamper. He remembered long ago that his parents disparaged him for having an interest in swords. But courtesy to him sticking to his guns, some well invested money, and a very supportive grandmother during the Christmas holidays, he had a half-decent collection of swords started up.

His personal favorite was a modernized high-carbon wakizashi that he found online a year ago. What made it unique was that it had an elongated hilt so that it could be held with two hands if needed be, and a slightly longer blade than usual. He fell in love with the blade because it's height made it almost perfect for him to use. Deciding to get himself more attuned with it, he decided to take it outside for some practice.

As Rezzie made his way to the back door, he opened it and exited out onto the back patio onto the back yard. He had to take the time to appreciate the fact that their yard was wide open and expansive. Most people in their neighborhood usually had a swimming pool or a trailer in the bac, which made their yards small. But his family didn't need anything like that, since Rezzie's grandmother already had a swimming pool in her back yard. With their yard being wide open, as well as it being around nature, it reminded him of home on occasions.

Stepping out into the middle of the yard, he drew the blade from the lacquered sheath and tossed it down onto the grass out of the way. When he was a child, he was half-way decent despite being so young. Now that he had reached manhood and had practiced considerably and consistently over the years he spent in the capitol, he had studied several styles of swordplay and became a force to be reckoned with. Many different people that were friends of his friends, dozens that Rezzie could recall, had come and gone through his house to challenge him. Every now and then they host little impromptu tournaments between themselves.

Rezzie began to use numerous arts of swordplay, switching through different stances and styles as he swung his blade. Utilizing different spins and flips with each variation and switch, he felt like a bird in flight with his craft. He made sure to move carefully as to not strike himself with the blade, as the high-carbon steel edge was extremely sharp and one wrong move could cut him deeply to the point where he would either need surgery or worse – an amputation.

After several minutes of practice, he heard the back door open and whirled around to face the source. It revealed to be Nesha and Smith coming out onto the back patio. Rezzie figured that his mom let them in and told them where he was. The swordsman walked over to his sheath and sheathed his sword, his face beet red. He never was one much who enjoyed an audience when training. He preferred to practice alone, away from prying eyes.

"You were looking pretty damn good out there, Rezzie," complimented Nesha, "I swear, you never seem to lost a step."  
"Hey guys, sorry you had to see that," Rezzie grinned sheepishly as he approached them, laying the blade on the glass table, "You guys been well? I'm guessing Titan couldn't make it huh?"  
"Yeah, the morning's been good. Titan had a doctor's appointment to go to. Hey, is it all right if I join you in some training?" Nesha asked as he stroked his chin, "it's been a while since I practiced. When Bellinger shows up, I wanna be in good form to win against him."  
"Sure. You know where they're stashed at. Go and get them," Rezzie answered and made a waving motion with his hand.  
As Nesha ran inside to get the training swords out of Rezzie's room, Smith finally spoke, "Holy crap, man, how long have you learned how to do all of that?" Smith asked, surprised, "doing all of that must've taken you years to do."  
"A little over 16 years now," answered Rezzie as he sat down in one of the chairs, " I first got into it when I was three. Started off with swinging around a stick. After that it just grew on me. Now here I am."  
"What? Over 16 years? Jesus, you've been doing it for about as long as I've been alive! That's insane!" Smith eyed Rezzie's wakizashi, a glint in his eye, "you mind if I check it out?"  
"Sure, knock yourself out. Just don't break anything," Rezzie paused for a moment and looked at Smith, "Wait, you're still in high school? I could've sworn you were almost twenty, same as us!"  
"Nah, I'll be starting my junior year once summer vacation ends," answered Smith as he drew the sword, admiring the blade, "So, how long have you known Nesha and Titan for?"  
"Four years, give or take. What about you?"  
"Same. You into playing instruments as well or no?"  
"Used to when I was a kid. Worked with woodwind instruments. After coming down here to the capitol, I lost my taste for the game after some band mates decided to trash my stuff. Now I prefer to listen to other people play," Rezzie frowned, feeling a bit sore on the subject, "Since you brought us on the subject, I'm guessing that you play guitar as well, same as Nesha?"  
"Yep, I've started back in middle school and been playing ever since. I'd love to get into a band when the time comes, make it big," Austin looked up witih a smile on hish face, daydreaming a bit about his ambitions.  
Rezzie let out a laugh and stretched out his arms, "You and Nesha are a lot alike, I can see why you two are such good friends."

Nesha came out of the back door holding three bamboo training swords in both of his hands. In technically, they belonged to Bellinger as he bought them. The reason Rezzie has them is because since they competed so much here that he decided to leave them here for everyone to use. Rezzie had hard plastic training swords that he himself trained with , but with them being so dense they were capable of really hurting people to the point of breaking bones. Therefore, they used Bellinger's training swords instead for contests.

"Hey, Rezzie, are you ready?" Nesha asked as he tossed his teacher a training sword and leaned another one on the table.  
Catching it in his hand, Rezzie grinned, "I'm ready whenever you are."  
"And for the love of God, please don't kick my ass too badly. I don't want any more welts."  
"I'll try my best to take it easy, but don't expect me to make any promises.

The two stepped off the patio and made their way to the center of the back yard. As Rezzie swung the sword through the air a few times to get himself attuned to the lightness of the weapon, Nesha got himself into a sword stance, already ready to go. Rezzie smiled, he admired Nesha's ambitious nature at times. Turning to face his training partner, he leaned the bamboo sword over his shoulder.

"For now I will only defend, not attack. For this test we will focus on testing your stamina, your technique and your dexterity," Rezzie spoke clearly with a hard tone in his voice, catching Nesha's attention, "The training ends when you land a blow on me or when you quit, whichever comes first. Are you ready?"  
"Hell yeah, let's do this!" Nesha said as he rushed forward at his teacher, "here I come!"  
"That's the spirit!"

Nesha aimed numerous strikes and slashes from high and low, which Rezzie either dodged or blocked. They were all basic textbook motions that he was using, going off what he had learned so far. After the next combination, Rezzie leapt back and circled around him, gauging his distance and Nesha's movements carefully. His plan was to make Nesha chase him around for as long as he can while tiring him out. It was the same style that he used when he faced Randall three days ago when they broke into his house.

As he expect, Nesha rushed after him, leapt into the air and aimed a spinning strike downward at Rezzie, only for him to roll underneath the strike and spin around to face him again. After cutting lose another combination of strikes, he leapt back and aimed a thrusting stab at his teacher. Blocking the combination, he narrowly dodged the stab by taking a sharp jump to the right and leapt back again, keeping up the distance in order to jerk Nesha around.

This pattern lasted for about three minutes before Nesha finally stopped and fell to his knees, panting. He had sweat beating down on his face as he had a hard time trying to catch his breath. Seeing this as the end of the session, but at the same time being cautious, he kept a good five yards distance as a precaution.

"So, I guess you had enough?" Rezzie asked, cocking his head.  
"Yeah, I'm beat," Nesha answered before slowly rising to his feet, using the bamboo sword to prop himself up, "Dude, you move around way too much. I keep having to chase you down."  
"Of course. If you want your meal, the least I can make you can do is work for it," Rezzie chuckled as he stepped forward, "The good news is that your striking power, your speed and your form is on point. But the problem is that you lack stamina. Bellinger has trained for a long time as well, so if he wins it'll be solely because of his experience. However, at the very least you'll be able have a good showing against him. With luck on your side, you will win."  
"Wait, only because of experience? Why do you say that?" Nesha asked, confused.  
"You'll see when he and the rest of the goon squad shows up," Rezzie gave a light grin.

After a few minutes of the trio conversing amongst themselves, the back door opened as four people stepped out of the patio. The first man, Bellinger, was a short, stocky man, shorter than even Rezzie. He had curly red hair and pale skin. He was wearing a white sleeveless sweater over a black tank top and black shorts. One peculiar thing about him was that his teeth were messed up an crooked, likely from them growing in wrong. The second man, Love, was an overweight man around Rezzie's height. He had pale skin, raven black hair that looked like it had more pampering to it than the rest of his body. He wore a black t-shirt and black skinny jeans, something that Rezzie internally cringed at due to it being hot out.

The third man, Markham, was an individual that Rezzie personally didn't like associating with. The only reason he tolerated him was for Bellinger's sake. He had short, brown hair, peach-colored skin and was wearing a blue tank top and black shorts. However, he had a horrifying case of psoriasis that covered the entirety of his face and refused to undergo treatment for. Their gang often japed that he was afflicted with leprosy. The fourth man was someone that Rezzie never seen before in a day of his life. He was a head taller than Rezzie, had scruffy black hair, a muscular build and a face that looked like a caveman out of the stone age. He wore a light blue shirt and gray shorts.

"What's good, bitches?" Bellinger grinned as he held his arms out in embrace.  
"Good to see you all gentlemen. Eh…and who is this guy?" Rezzie looked over at the fourth man, raising an eyebrow at him."  
"This is Eric. He's a friend of Bellinger and I," Markham explained, "He is a competitive Renaissance fighter for the tournament melees. He's currently ranked third in the country. I told him about you and it piqued his interests."  
"Wait, you're a pro?" Nesha asked, surprised, "Well this should be fun to watch."  
"Yep! So, any of you want to start? Best of nine, strictly sword strikes," Bellinger asked, a sly smile on his face.  
"I'll sit this one out. I haven't eaten anything yet so I'm gonna go grab some pizza in a few minutes since it just came in," Love answered, sitting down in the chair and leaning back slightly..  
"Wait, the food came in already? Nice!" Smith rose up and went into the house, shouting, "I smell bacon!"  
"DIBS!" Nesha and Rezzie shouted at the same time as they both rose up, placed their bamboo swords on the table, and jetted inside, leaving the four that just arrived out alone.  
"So, what about you? Shall we get started?" Bellinger looked over at Eric, cocking his head.  
"Do lets," Eric smiled as the two picked up the bamboo swords and stepped onto the grass.

—

The three young men were in the kitchen with a half a dozen boxes of pizza on the kitchen counter. Rezzie only had about one slice for the time being while Nesha and Smith had three slices of bacon pizza apiece. The reason Rezzie was being frugal right now because he intended on facing either Bellinger or Eric in a few minutes, so he didn't want to be weighed down by food.

Rezzie decided to initiate some small talk, "So, you two been working on any sort of songs lately?" Rezzie asked as he took a bite out of pizza.  
"Oh yeah, I've been making gains on that front. We've also been working on a couple of songs for our band, so we've been working very hard lately," Nesha answered before wolfing down on a n slice of pizza.  
"No kidding? You guys are starting a band?" Rezzie's eyes widened in surprise.  
"Hell yeah, right now we need a bass player and a drummer. We did have a guy on bass, but we're considering scrapping him because he's been unreliable lately and doesn't come to practice," Smith answered, looking dejected.  
"What a shame," Rezzie frowned as he finished his slice, "Speaking of shames, there's something we need to talk about. I'm sure you all have looked into the news report on Randall and the job we did?"  
"No, we haven't. It actually made the news?" Nesha asked with an uneasy expression on his face as he and Smith simultaneously stopped eating, "what can you give tell us about it?"  
"In a nutshell, the cops were alerted and arrived on the scene shortly after we left. Since they found drugs in their house, so redhead and his wife got locked up. Their daughter is with her grandparents now," Rezzie explained as he looked between his two compatriots, "as for Randall, he bounced before they showed up, but not without leaving peeled chunks of his face behind. Since he's on the run, I can only suspect that he'll be going after you two and Titan."

Nesha and Smith had serious expressions on their faces. They didn't expect things to get out of hand like this. Now Randall will be coming for them and they don't know when, where or how. The kitchen fell silent for a minute or so before Nesha looked over at Rezzie, confused. Their bearer of bad news seemed a lot less nervous than he should be.  
"Wait, what about you? You're the one that beat his ass, he should be going after you first!" Nesha noted as he pointed at the swordsman.  
"He doesn't know who I am or where I live, and since I had parts of my face covered he doesn't know what I look like either," Rezzie answered as he took another bite of his pizza, "the best way he'll be getting to me is to get to you guys first. But don't worry, I won't let that happen. I made the mess, I'll be cleaning it up."  
"Wrong, we'll do it together," Smith answered with a confident expression on his face, "Randall may be a cockroach, but we can take him without a sweat."  
"'Hell yeah!" Nesha nodded in agreement as he ate another slice of his pizza.

Rezzie smiled at the two, feeling better than he did going into the situation. He was really glad that he had such good friends these days. He remembered for the better part of his childhood that he hardly had many, if any, friends. When he moved to the capitol with his family, he had to leave his friends and his old life behind in order to start anew. Fortunately he had the good fortune of being able to get in with a decent bunch of kids when he settled in. They were such good friends that they were willing to fight and die for one another, and in his heart he couldn't ask for anything better than that.

Rezzie then decided to take a detour from the conversation, "So, what's up with that guy Markham brought with him? I think he is hyping the man a bit too much for my liking."  
"I noticed that, too. Knowing scale-dick, he's likely embellishing," Nesha rolled his eyes, grinning.  
Rezzie's ears perked to the sound of wood clacking outside, "It sounds like they're really going at it back there. Ya know what, I think I'm gonna go out there and find out myself."

Rezzie politely excused himself from the kitchen table and went out the back door to see what the noise was about. What he saw was Bellinger panting as he was getting pressed backwards by Eric as the caveman unleashed a barrage of strikes upon the smaller man. Judging by what he was seeing, the professional was utilizing his long reach and range as well as strafing his movements in order to press his opponent.

What really got his attention was that every now and then he threw in a powerful horizontal swing that had a bit of wind-up to it. Rezzie made sure to time how long it took to wind up the swing, how fast the swing was, and how long it took to slow it down. After half a minute, Eric thrust the bamboo sword forward and caught Bellinger clean in the chest with the stabbing thrust, knocking him flat on his back. Eric helped Bellinger to his feet as the two walked back to the porch.

"So, I'm guessing Eric won the bout?" Rezzie looked between the two, eyebrow raised in curiosity.  
"He did, five to one too," Bellinger answered as he stretched his arms out, "I'm gonna go out and get some pizza. You wanna take a shot at him?"  
"Seeing what he did to you, of course I do," Rezzie turned to face Eric, "do you wanna take a rest or do you want to go straight to it?"  
"I was just getting warmed up," Eric grinned at his new opponent with a cocky expression on his face, "you're the one I came here for."  
"What's the matter, Rezzie? You're looking a bit nervous, there," Markham teased, trying to get under his skin.  
Rezzie's glared down upon the scale-faced man, "I'm not nervous at all, it's been a while since I've been this excited. But you look like you could use some exercise, Markham. Wanna have a go before I face your friend, here?" as Markham's face paled at Rezzie's challenge, the swordsman scoffed at him, "that's what I thought. Eric, shall we?"  
"Of course. After you," Eric's expression changed into one of seriousness.

As the two stepped out towards the middle of the yard, they both took combative stances. Rezzie knew he was going to be up for a very long day, considering who he's up against. And judging by how Eric was now completely focused on him now, as opposed to the cocky smile he had when he beat Bellinger all across the yard, Eric must've certainly been feeling the same.

Eric started off with that strong horizontal swing that he occasionally threw into his combinations. However, Rezzie's observations a minute prior allowed him to time when his guard would be open. Swooping forward, ducking under the strong swing, he thrust his sparring sword forward and struck him clean underneath his torso, causing him to stagger back in pain. It was clear that he wasn't expecting for the smaller opponent to be able to counter his signature swing right from the beginning in such a fashion.

Leaping back, Rezzie raised his guard and prepared for whatever Eric had coming for him. The man recovered from the damage and charged forward, unleashing a barrage of slashes and thrusts at his opponent. Rezzie blocked the attacks carefully as he maneuvered around him in order to fully gauge his strength. Losing traction on the grass slightly, Rezzie's guard accidentally lowered as Eric aimed a rising slash towards Rezzie's side. The blow struck home into Rezzie's liver and caused him to buckle and step back.

Rezzie had to admit, this man was a troublesome opponent. No only did his attacks carry power, he was faster than what Rezzie expected. Recovering from the strike, he saw as Eric wasn't going to stop his assault and continued striking forward at him. The swordsman blocked the barrage before the two simultaneously strike each other with consecutive stabs, forcing the two to stagger away from one another and put distance from one another.

"I gotta admit, you're better than I thought," Eric grinned, "but it feels like you're holding back on me, here. If you keep playing defensively like this, I'll win."  
"Well, so much for a war of attrition," Rezzie gritted his teeth as he felt the blood pump through his veins, "you're right, I got no choice but to cut loose from here."  
"Wait, what?"

Rezzie roared as he charged forward and unleashed a brutal combination of fast-paced strikes towards his opponent. Eric's eyes widened as he tried to parry, only to get caught with a strike clean in the side of his neck, causing him to tumble to the ground in pain. By the time he could recover, Rezzie was coming at him still. Eric aimed a low strike towards Rezzie's legs, only for him to leap into the air, somersault and aim a vertical swing towards the downed opponent.

Eric used the momentum of his swing to roll out of the way as the bamboo sword slammed into the ground, leaving a dent in the earth from the force of the strike. As he rose back to his feet, he was flabbergasted by the ferocity that Rezzie was unleashing as he continued to charge forward and aimed a powerful horizontal strike with all his might towards Eric's torso. Eric tried to clash against the strike with his own swing, roaring as he put everything he had into the blow. As the two bamboo swords clashed against one another with a sharp crack in the air, Eric's weapon shattered into splinters as it lost the bout.

The follow-through of the attack struck Eric in the chest, causing him to lean back from the force of the blow. Stunned at the destruction of his weapon, he could only watch in horror as Rezzie slide forward and thrust the tip of the bamboo sword into Eric's chin. The force of the thrust caused him to be knocked off his feet and fall flat on his back a yard away. The remains of the shattered weapon flew out of his hand and were strewn across the yard.

Not sure if this brutal man would continue to attack, all he could do now is submit, "I yield! I yield!" Eric shouted as he held his hand up to protect his face.  
"Good," Eric looked up to see Rezzie looking down at him with a hard look as he held his hand out to help him up, "you're pretty good. It's been a while since I fought seriously. Thanks, I needed that."  
"Wait, that was your true fighting style?" Eric's eyes widened in surprise, "I didn't think that you would have the skill to hide away your own strength like that."  
"We both know that skill isn't always enough. At times, you need to wield your blade with a primal finesse and a savagery to paint the world red with blood," patting Eric on the shoulder, Rezzie grinned, "Well, I think it's safe to say that we both got what we came here for. We should probably head back to the party."

As the two headed back towards the patio, Rezzie got a good look at the frustrated scowls that were on the faces of Bellinger and Markham. He could only guess that the two young men weren't all that pleased about Rezzie mauling Eric the way he did; the former due to being outclassed by the same opponent not minutes earlier and breaking one of his training swords, and the latter due to him having hyped up Eric the way he did but only for him to be made a fool of. The swordsman blew off their scowls; in his eyes, their personal hang-ups were irrelevant to him.

When he walked towards the door back into his house, Smith and Nesha were just exiting, a plate full of pizza in one hand and a cup of soda in another. Judging by the crumbs on their faces, it looks like they already consumed quite a bit of the food available already. He didn't mind them eating, as long as they weren't gluttonous and saved enough for everyone else.

"So, how did it go?" Nesha asked curiously.  
"5-2, my win. He was a lot better than I thought. Broke his blade while I was at it," answered Rezzie as he walked past them, "is there still pizza left over?"  
"Yeah, man. Tons of it," Smith answered as he sat down at the table outside.  
"Awesome. I'll be back out in a few minutes. Don't wait up on me," Rezzie said as he closed the door behind him to grab some more pizza.

As Smith and Nesha sat down at the table, the latter turned to the rest of their group and grinned, "Hey, Markham, is there something you'd like to say?"  
"Shut your yap," grumbled Markham as he turned away from them.  
"Bellinger, I'm sorry about your training sword getting broken in that bout," Eric apologized as he sat down as well, "If you want, I can pay you back for it."  
"No need. Rezzie will be the one to reimburse me for it. After all, he was the one that broke it in the first place," Bellinger waved his hand as he declined the offer, "besides, I know him well enough. He'll pay."  
"Sounds fair to me," Eric leaned back and looked over at Love, "So, I heard that you got an older brother. How come he isn't over here?"  
"Gray and Rezzie had a falling out due to personal personality conflicts," Love explained as he finished his food, "Rezzie is a complete dick and Gray has a major problem with lying. Obviously Rez got pissed off and barred him from coming here. Hopefully the two can make some sort of amends and patch things up."  
"Well, that depends entirely on him, Love," the group turned to the door to see Rezzie coming out with four slices if pizza on his plate, "I may be a dick, but that man wronged me with his dishonesty, and because of that he betrayed my trust. If he apologizes and makes efforts to work on being more honest, I'll be more than happy to let bygones be bygones."  
"That might take some time, man. He's almost as stubborn as you are," Bellinger grumbled as he looked over at the broken wooden sword that was resting on the ground, "by the way, you owe me twenty bucks for the blade you broke," Rezzie didn't even blink as he pulled out a twenty out of his pocket and slapped it on the table in front of him," whoa, uh, thanks. Wasn't expecting it to be paid for right this instant."  
"Don't worry about it. It's no problem," Rezzie shrugged as he took another bite of pizza before grinning," Now that business has been settled, we party."

—

For the next several hours, the group of young men spent the rest of the day and the better part of the evening hanging out and having fun. After finishing their food, they spent the rest of the time playing video games and chilling out in Rezzie's bedroom, shooting the breeze. After the events that occurred the past few days, it felt nice for him to feel normal every once in a while. Or at least in Rezzie's perspective it felt normal.

By the time that the clock turned to around 11 at night, everyone was pretty much ready to go home and call it a night. Bellinger, Markham and Eric were the last ones to leave Rezzie's house as they stepped outside through the front door, with Rezzie himself seeing them off. The four of them seemed rather content with the small party they had.

"Hey, guys, thanks for coming over and having a good time," Rezzie spoke graciously as he embraced Bellinger, "I really did appreciate the company."  
"Hell yeah, man. Thanks for having us," Bellinger returned the embrace before letting go, "we should hang out again sometime."  
"Sure thing. You guys take care."

As the trio left down the road out of the neighborhood, things were a bit silent between them, but then Markham spoke, "So what the hell was that out there, Eric? How did you get your ass kicked like that?"  
"Hey, it's not like I WANTED to get beat," Eric huffed as he looked down towards the pavement, "he was a lot better than I thought he would be. You told me he was good, but you never told me that he was that good. There is something off about that guy's swordsmanship."  
"As far as style? He's self-taught, same as I am," Bellinger, shrugged.  
"As far as his overall strength and ability in general. Didn't you guys find it odd that he was doing flips though the air when he went all out the way he did?" Eric asked, causing the other two men to look at him in thought, "that's not normal. Something isn't right with that at all."'  
"Really? I thought that he was just athletic is all," Bellinger then shook his head and waved the notions off, "well, enough of that for one night. You guys wanna stay at my place for the night?"  
"Sure. I'm not in the mood to walk seven or eight miles in the dark just to get home," Markham answered as he gave a sigh of relief.  
"Sounds good to me too, man."  
"Great, let's roll out."

As the trio walked out of the neighborhood and on their way to Bellinger's house, they were unaware of what was standing in the middle of the street in the cul-de-sac on their left, standing in the light of the street lamp. It was a large man who was dressed in a dark green trench coat with the hood pulled over his face. In his left hand was a lead pipe with thick, bulky nails sticking out of it from midway all the way to the tip. As the man looked towards the trio and skulked back into the darkness, disappearing into the night.


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four – Moving Job**  
 **—**

Rezzie was doing calisthenics shirtless in his room, training his body to keep it in fit shape – a usual daily routine for him. During his high school years, he failed to adjust to his growing body well and ended up overweight during the first three years of high school. And because of that, he never felt comfortable in his own skin. But during the second semester of his senior year, something clicked in his mind and he started working out extensively. He went so far as to drop 30 pounds along the way. Ever since then, he's always been extremely paranoid about his weight and his physique to the point where it was becoming vain, something that Rezzie was very much aware of.

After fifteen minutes, he got himself off the floor and dusted himself off of any residual dust that lied on the tile floor. It had been a month since when he last had friends over, and a lot had happened in that period of time. He and his father had stripped the carpet and the flooring out of the entire house and tiled the whole inside. It was a grueling task, one that put a major hurting on the both of them. So for the meantime they've been keeping a low profile, letting themselves unwind and relax.

The young man walked over to his closet and pulled out a black and orange tank top off the hanger above his dresser. Slipping it on, he adjusted it to where it would rest comfortably on his body. Once he did that, he stepped out of his room and made his way towards the kitchen. Right now it was the late morning and it was close to lunchtime. He figured that he would just have a couple of sandwiches to tide him over for the rest of the afternoon.

But before he could get started on grabbing himself a bite to eat, he heard the house phone ring in the kitchen. As Rezzie checked the caller ID on the screen, it showed to be Nesha and Titan's father, Lee. It was weird to get a call from him, but for the most part it's usually to do an odd job, something that Rezzie can certainly appreciate. He hadn't made any money this week so he needed to get his hands on some more cash to make up for lost income.

Picking up the phone, he hit the answer bottom and held the phone to his ear, "Hello?"  
After a couple of seconds, the phone buzzed before a voice answered, "Hey, Rezzie, it's Lee. How're ya doing?"  
"Pretty good, sir, just about to have some lunch. How about you?"  
"About the same. Anyways, I got a job I need done in a few hours, and I need some muscle to do it. We're finally a bunch of our stuff into storage so that my older brother can move in. Nesha and Titan will be helping us out, and I'm gonna see if I can get Smith as well," Rezzie listened intently as the man The job pays sixty bucks and I'll even hook you up with some dinner. Sound good with you?"

Rezzie stopped for a moment to consider the offer. The moving itself would only take a few hours, and atop of that he was getting a free meal out of it. However, he knew one thing about them their family is that they live in sloppy conditions. Although it was not nearly to the extent that the crack den they broke into a month back, it was bad enough that Rezzie absolutely refused to go into any of the bedrooms whatsoever, and mostly just hung out in the living room.

The young man gave it a few more seconds before asking, "is the stuff that you're gonna be storing already packaged up and boxed?"  
"Yep, it's all stacked up in the living room. We just need manpower to haul it all," the voice answered over the phone.  
"I'm in. What time do you want me there?"  
"We'll be starting around two."  
"Excellent, I'll see you there."

Rezzie ended the phone call and hung up the phone in its holster. His afternoon was pretty much set and he would be able to make a decent chunk of money as well. And since the stuff was already set to be moved, he wouldn't have to enter into any of their bedrooms, much to his relief. As much as he cared for those two boys, almost like his own brethren, even he had his limits to disregarding sanitation. With that, Rezzie pulled out some ham and a loaf of bread out of the fridge and laid them out on the table along with an empty plate from one of the cabinets above the oven. For now he was going to eat a pleasant lunch, and then he will get right down to business.

—–

Meanwhile, Nesha was sitting on the living room playing video games on the television. It was close to two o'clock and he was chilling out until his father could get here with the moving van. With his uncle moving into his old room, as well as Nesha having to bunk back in with his older brother, it would mean that a lot of stuff on everyone's end would have to go to storage. Mostly it would have to be his stuff.

A few weeks ago, he registered himself to go into JobCorp, which was a training program for people looking to gain skills necessary to find themselves work in the real world. As much as he enjoyed the freelancer life, he realized that he needed to find more sustainable income as well as a skill set necessary to survive in this world. In a few months, he'll be leaving the capitol to go to the JobCorp site in Sandsborough, a city which was 50 miles north of the capitol in the middle of nowhere.

His older brother went through the same program last year in order to bolster his cooking skills and become a chef. While he passed the course with flying colors, Titan had two problems. First was his own dysfunctions. Before he went into the program, he was relatively thin. But due to his weaknesses, as well as the profession he was going into, he put on an immense amount of weight in a short period of time and developed an eating problem. It was so bad that their father actually had to put a lock on the fridge to keep him from raiding it. The second was that he was having a hard time sustaining work. Due to his lack of worth ethic as well as his often slovenly appearance and lifestyle, he can hardly keep a job. The longest he has been able to hold one was about two months.

Then again, Nesha couldn't exactly say that he was any better. He lived in similar squalid conditions and had his own problems with initiative. Most of the freelancer's big-paying odd jobs have been when he was partnering with Rezzie. Atop of that he had a major fondness for marijuana, a psychoactive drug that he's been smoking since he was in high school. However, because of the fact that nearly everyone that hires someone does a drug test before hiring, Nesha had the hardest time finding a job. His hope that going through JobCorp will help him clean up his act and get his life together accordingly when he studies to become an auto mechanic.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of motor revving outside. Pausing his game, he grunted to his feet and lumbered over to the front door, sliding past the massive pile of stacked up boxes and freight. Opening it and stepping around the corner, he saw a large moving van parked outside, backed up with the ramp down and the back doors opened. Next to the moving van was his father, and surprisingly enough Rezzie. If there was one thing he liked about the man, it was that he was prompt.

Approaching the three men, Nesha waved to them to make his presence known, "Hey guys. Rezzie, thanks for coming to help. When did you get in?"  
"Thanks for having me," greeted Rezzie as he embraced Nesha in a brotherly hug, "Actually, I just got in. My bike needs to have the brakes repaired, so I decided to walk all the way here.'  
"True that, true that," Nesha nodded, understanding the situation, "Smith couldn't make it, so it'll be just us today. But we should be able to manage."  
"Hey, Nesha, why don't you go get your brother and Johan out here to help us out," Nesha's father ordered as he wiped the sweat off his brow, "we need to get this stuff done fast cause I only got this rig for a few hours."  
"All right," Nesha grumbled in compliance.

Nesha walked into the house, through the kitchen and swung open the door to Titan's bedroom that was next to the fridge. Sitting in a filthy, garbage-ridden room was Titan, who was laying on his bed watching television. At the edge of his bed was a collage of dirty dishes and in his hands was a bag of chips that he was shoveling down his throat. Overall, many a sane mind would find it to be a disgusting sight.

Nesha certainly thought so as he cringed at his older brother, "Hey, fatboy, get off your ass. We got work to do."  
"I'll be out in a minute," Titan answered as he ate another bite of his chips.  
"All right, but if you aren't out there and dad and uncle Jonah get pissed about it, it's your ass. Not mine."

Nesha closed the door behind him and exited the kitchen to head into the living room. From the bedroom hallway on his left came his uncle, Jonah. Jonah was a man in his early sixties and a giant compared to everyone else living there, almost six and a half feet tall. He had silver hair that was combed back, along with a thick beard that went past his neck. He wore a gray dress shirt, blue jeans and black work shoes.

The two men made their way back outside to the driveway to see that Lee and Rezzie were already getting started with moving the boxes out of the living room into the moving van. As Rezzie hopped out of the van, he looked up almost straight up to look Jonah face to face. At first, the young man didn't know what to initially say. But after a few seconds, he extended his right hand for a handshake.

"Good afternoon, sir," Rezzie greeted with a smile on his face, "I'm Rezzie. I'm a friend of Nesha and Titan."  
"Nice to meet ya," Jonah took Rezzie's hand into his meaty grip, "thanks for coming to help us out."  
"Of course, sir. So, ah…where did Titan scamper off to?"  
"He'd say he'd be out in a minute," Nesha answered before throwing his hands up in the air, "if he doesn't come out here, it's on him."  
"Seems fair," Jonah shrugged before turning to his brother, "your back going to be all right?"  
"It should be fine for a little while," Nesha's father answered with a nod, "if I need to step away from it, I'll let you guys know."  
"Well, let's get back to it!" Rezzie spoke as he went back into the house.

After that, the four of them picked up the pace with loading the moving van. Even though there was a lot of freight to be moved, they were able to operate well as a team. After fifteen minutes in, Titan finally showed up, and after getting an earful from his father he helped them out as well. After an hour and a half, they were able to fully load up the last of the furniture.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Nesha exhaled with a relieved expression on his face, "whew! I'm glad we got all that done!"  
"Yep, hard part's over," Rezzie nodded, "Now all we gotta do is put it all in the storage unit. So, who do you guys want me to ride with?"  
Lee, after taking a swig out of his water bottle, answered, "you can ride with me. My two boys can ride with Jonah in the SUV."  
"Sounds good to me," Rezzie nodded with approval.

Within a few short minutes, the five people got in their respective vehicles and set off down the road to the storage lot. In the moving van, things were quiet between Lee and Rezzie during the drive. They didn't really have much to talk about, and because of that the silence was awkward for them.

"…So, ah, I hear that Nesha is going to JobCorp in November," Rezzie decided to break the awkward silence.  
"Oh yeah, I think it's great that he's wanting to improve himself," Lee answered with a small smile, "hopefully he'll better off from it when he comes out as opposed to his brother."  
"Yeah," Rezzie looked out the passenger window for a moment before speaking again, "I heard from him that you guys had to put a padlock on the fridge to keep it from being opened. What's that about?"  
"Lately we've been having food shortages because of Titan raiding the fridge all the time. While he may deny it, we all know that he's lying through his teeth. So because of that, we had to keep the fridge under lock and key,"' Lee shrugged at his own answer, "it's not like I wanted to, I honestly didn't have much choice but to. I don't like having to spend all the money I do on food only for it to disappear so quickly."  
"Well, you have a fair point," Rezzie pondered before going back into silence.

For the rest of the drive it was mostly silent between them as they continued on down the road. Every now and then, Lee would complain about the poor flow of traffic and drivers constantly cutting the moving van off. Rezzie often found during his time in the capitol is that hardly anyone uses their turn signals while driving. He often japed that the ones that actually do use their turn signals are the ones that aren't from the capitol. However, even he couldn't help but to wonder if there was a hint of truth to his japes.

After twenty more minutes of driving, the moving van turned into the front entrance of the storage lot. The security guard manning the gate, after checking some paperwork, opened the gate and waved them through. Driving past numerous storage units, they stopped in front of the last one in the far-left corner of the lot. The SUV carrying Jonah, Titan, and Nesha stopped several yards behind the moving van so that way they can have room to move around and carry freight off the van.

As everyone was getting out of their vehicles, Lee tossed the key to the storage unit to Jonah, and spoke with a shout, "All right, we're making some good time. All we gotta do is move everything in, then it's happy hour!"

Jonah took of the lock on the unit and heaved the heavy steel door up and opened the unit enough for them to get started working. The process of unloading the moving van was much easier for the five men to do than loading it up, as they were moving much faster than they were when they started the job. In less than an hour, the inside of the moving van was emptied out, and the storage unit was not only filled, but organized depending on what belonged to who. There was also enough walking space in-between stacks of boxes and furniture for anyone to move freely.

Satisfied with the job, Lee pulled down the steel door, closed and padlocked the storage unit, "well, that went better than expected. Good work, guys," he then turned to Rezzie, pulled out three twenty dollar bills out of his pocket, and handed them to the man, "thanks for helping us out, Rezzie."  
Rezzie looked at the money for a moment, then he shook his head, "No, sir. I changed my mind on that on the way down here. You don't need to pay me for today."  
"No, no, I insist. Take the money," Lee urged.  
"How about this, sir. We'll just trade favors this time around. The next time I need help with something, you can come and help me out."  
"I'm usually busy these days, so how about I just send Nesha or Titan to give you a hand, free of charge," Lee proposed before smiling, "sound good to you?"  
"Wait, what!?" Nesha spoke aloud as he overheard the conversation.  
"Well, I suppose that sounds fair to me. Deal," Rezzie nodded in agreement.  
Before the two could shake hands, Nesha swooped in between them, "Whoa, wait a second! Don't I get a say in any of this?"  
"That depends. Do you pay any bills?"  
"No, but-"  
"But you still live in my house, correct?"  
"Yes, but-"  
"Then no, I'm afraid you don't a say," Lee turned back to Rezzie, "you need a lift, or do you wanna walk back from here?"  
"Actually, I was gonna walk back," answered Rezzie as he shrugged, "I can always use the exercise."  
"I'll go with you," Nesha offered, "besides, there's a couple of things that I wanna talk to you about in private anyways."  
"Fine with me. If you two are late, then we'll save you a plate," nodded Lee as he gotten into the driver's seat of the SUV, and rolled down the window to continue speaking, "there's a park nearby the storage lot that you can cut through to help save time But with it being dark soon, it's not exactly safe. My advice would be to stay on the main city streets and follow them back to the house. You sure you guys will be all right?"  
"Yeah, sure," the two spoke simultaneously.  
"All right, see you guys later."

As the SUV drove its way out of the storage lot and down the road, Nesha and Rezzie started their journey on foot the same way. As much as Rezzie was likely to dread the conversation that he was about to have with Nesha, he was honestly glad that he was not walking back by himself. Despite their differences in upbringing and lifestyles, Rezzie always valued his friendship with Nesha. Not only that, he valued his counsel as well.

Nesha was the first to speak, his voice filled with discontent, "that was screwed up, man. Why did you do that?"  
"I'm sorry, Nesha," Rezzie apologized before explaining, "I know your father is having to pay the bills on a park ranger's pay, despite his back injuries. I thought that, with money being tight on your dad's end, it was a fair deal."  
"Even still, it wouldn't have hurt to consult me when you make moves like that," Nesha grumbled, "you did the right thing when you refused the money, but I lost face in the process. What am I supposed to make of that?"  
"You're right, I should've talked to you," Rezzie paused for a moment before speaking again, "from now on, when I make a move that concerns or involves you, I'll let you know long beforehand."  
"It's whatever," Nesha shrugged, "we're cool now."

Once the duo left the storage lot, they turned left down the street and came to the entrance of the park. Rezzie took note on what Nesha's father informed them on the park. While it was a much faster way back to Nesha's place, the route was risky business. And with it being close to nighttime, the risks were only going to keep piling up. Rezzie pondered for a moment, torn on the decision. He looked over to Nesha to see what he thought on the matter.

However, judging by the direction Nesha was going, it looked like the decision was made for him, "All right, let's go," he spoke as he walked towards the park trail.  
"Wait a minute, Nesha. It's gonna get dark soon," Rezzie said as he darted in front of his friend, "and your dad said that this way isn't safe at night. You sure this is wise?"  
"For normal schmucks, maybe it's not safe. But we'll be fine," Nesha shrugged off the concerns, "besides, we're badasses. This is nothing. What can go wrong?"  
Rezzie wanted to speak against it further, but in fear of jinxing the situation he conceded, "all right, we'll go through the park. You lead the way, and I'll watch you six."

The two men turned into the park and headed down the paved trail, making their way back to Nesha's house. In his mind, Rezzie was certainly having second thoughts on the decision. But at the same time he couldn't leave his friend behind either. So the least he could do is watch his back and make sure that the two stayed safe. As the sun set over the tree line and darkness was coming over the forest, he could tell that the night was going to be dark and full of terrors.


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five – Awakened**  
 **—**

There was a deep unease in Rezzie as the two men trekked through the park trail. Nighttime had set in, and it was difficult to see without any form of light to guide their way. So he and Nesha were having to resort to adjusting their eyesight to see better in the darkness. Having spent most of his childhood in the forest, even when there was no light to guide his way, he didn't fear the dark by itself. He was more afraid of what lurked inside of it.

But the capitol wasn't a safe place at night, even worse so during the weekend. In the forests, Rezzie would've had to worry about mountain lions, snakes and other creatures that would bump in the night. But in the cities, it was a different story as it was humans that become such creatures. Muggers, gangsters, deviants, and killers ran free through the alleyways and the shadows of the buildings. Such things make Rezzie wish that he never came to the city in the first place.

Rezzie looked over at Nesha, "Hey, Nesha, I hope we're going the right way," Rezzie grumbled, 'it'd be a bitch if we end up getting lost in here."  
"I agree, and the night isn't helping us out, either," Nesha looked around, "I can barely see within 20 feet of me."  
"Same. Next time, we should invest in a flash light," Rezzie groaned.

As the duo went further down the trail, they came down to a fork in the road. Both of them looked almost similar in terms of appearance. Nesha was about to go down the right path, but turned to Rezzie, who was wide-eyed with his legs firmly planted into the paved trail. Every danger flag was going off in his mind as his instincts were screaming at him not to proceed forward. If Rezzie had never once heeded his instincts before in a day of his life, he was certainly doing so now.

"Okay, no. Screw that, I'm not doing this," Rezzie backed away, "this is a trap and a half waiting to happen. I'm out."  
"Come on, Rezzie, quit being a bitch," Nesha teased as he chuckled at his friend.  
"Call me a bitch all you want, but THAT is ripped straight out of a horror flick," Rezzie pointed at the fork in the road to emphasize his point, "if we go down either path, or worse – split up, we'll both get butchered. Forget that noise, I'm getting out of here. Tell your dad I'm taking the long way around."  
"Fine by me, bitch. I'm going on ahead. Then I'm going on Facebook and make fun of you for wimping out."  
"You can go right ahead. See you back at your place."

Rezzie turned around, and went up the trail back the way he came, leaving Nesha behind as he took the route on the right on the forked road. From then on, the two went their separate ways. As much as it pained him to leave his friend behind, Rezzie knew deep down that turning back was the right thing to do. All he can hope is that Nesha would come to his senses and make the same decision that he did.

—

Nesha continued down the trail path alone, feeling smug about himself. He found it hilarious that Rezzie, in his eyes, had second thoughts and turned back around. Growing up with him as a kid, his friend was usually the confident one. But now it seemed that the tables have turned. Nesha planned on making sure that his friend would never live this down.

While Rezzie felt nervous in this situation, he however did not. Nesha had watched so many horror films during his life that they were just that to him – films. Fake, false. He felt confident enough in his own surroundings to where he felt safe. Or maybe his pride was telling him not to turn back out of some misplaced fear of losing face. Either way, he was too hungry and too cocky to care.

As he continued further down the road, he finally came onto a source of light he had seen during this entire walk, a sole street lamp, illuminating the path. Either through relief or primal instinct, Nehsa headed straight for it. Standing under it, he basked in the light around him for a while before looking around him to get a better defined grasp of his surroundings.

The trail that he was walking was moderately visible, with large trees with large spaces in-between them big enough for a truck to drive through with little effort. On the right side ten yards away was a stream that ran forward parallel with the paved trail. On the left, the ground was inclined upwards, with the tree leaned towards the path to give natural cover to the trail. Bushes and vines littered the ground as a natural deterrent to prevent anyone from going up the hill.

Looking down the path, he could see faint lights off in the distance. Guessing that was where the end of the path, where civilization lied, he chuckled to himself. He was almost out of the woods, almost back home. As he was about to make his way out of the street lamp's light, he heard the sound of metal scraping against stone behind him. Stopping in his tracks, he turned around to see the source of the noise.

Standing in the edge of the street lamp's light stood a large man with a dark green trench coat. The hood was pulled over his face, shrouding his face. His right hand, clenched into a tight fist, was coated in metal, which reflected the sheen of the light above. Gripped in his left hand was a metal pipe with thick, bulky nails sticking out all over the place. The nails were dipped in a black, oily-like substance that Nesha never heard of.

Nesha was visibly frightened at first, but he regained his composure and spoke towards the man, "hey, buddy, I think you're in the wrong place," Nesha tried to keep calm, "Halloween isn't for another month."  
"Trust me, bitch, I'm right where I want to be," the man spoke, pointing his pipe at Nesha.  
Nesha's ears perked at what the man said, "wait, that voice sounds familiar…"  
"Been a while, Nesha."

The man used the pipe to unshroud himself of his hood, revealing his face to Nesha. At that point, Nesha was as white as a sheet as he recognized the man. The sight had left him paralyzed in shock and fear, keeping him from moving properly. The man charged forward in a full sprint, pipe in the air, and brought it downwards towards Nesha's skull.

"No way," Nesha breathed, before screaming aloud as the maniac advanced on the attack, "NoNONONONO-!"

—

Rezzie was almost back to the entrance of the park, seeing the street lights fifty yards away. He felt much calmer going back the way that he came. Back at the crossroads, his instincts were telling him to turn around. He didn't care if he had to take longer to get back to Nesha's house. As long as he was safe, that was more satisfying to him in the end.

Overall he was torn on his choice on having to leave Nesha behind. On one hand, his friend seemed confident in himself. However, Rezzie known for that same confidence turn into recklessness. And from his own personal experience, reckless behavior has often brought more harm than good. He hoped that Nesha would've had a moment of clarity and joined Rezzie on his way out, but at this point it seemed that Nesha's mind was fully made up.

On the other hand, Rezzie felt a sense of dread inside of him. He was worried that Nesha would be in serious danger, that he would wind up getting injured or worse while he was out there by himself. Neither Nesha or Rezzie had a cell phone or any way of reaching out to anyone. If the worst were to happen, he would have no one to help him. Rezzie was bothered immensely by the thought of it.

As soon as he reached the entrance of the park, he was about to turn onto the sidewalk but then he stopped in place. He couldn't take the nagging sensation any longer. He felt guilty enough for having to leave Nesha behind. But if something were to actually happen to him, Rezzie would never forgive himself. On a personal level, he could care less about being mocked for loss of his nerve. But he would never tolerate a loss of ethics, especially if they were his own.

Rezzie looked up into the sky, and groaned for a moment before cursing to himself, "Goddamn it!"

Turning around, he charged back down the park trail at a full sprint. While he was focused moving forward, he couldn't help but to be surprised at his speed. He was running faster than he thought that he could. He wasn't sure whether it was adrenaline or the amount of focus it was to get where he needed to be. All he knew was that he needed to get to Nesha as he could.

As he was nearing the fork in the road, he was confused as to which way that he could've gone. He then remembered that Nesha tried to go to the right before Rezzie left. Hoping he was right about his hunch, he sharply cut to the right and ran down the trail. As he sprinted a ways down the trail, he was a hundred feet away from the street lamp that was basking the bit of trail in light. But what he saw forced him to stop dead in his tracks in horror.

In the center of the street lamp's light, Nesha was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, still as a statue. He had numerous lacerations and signs of blunt-force trauma all over his head and chest. Standing over his body was the trench-coated man, who had his back to Rezzie. In his hands was the lead pipe, which was lodged in Nesha's abdomen.

Without thinking, Rezzie charged forward at full sprint, his sneakers making hard grinding noises against the pavement. Hearing the noise, the man perked up in confusion as to where it came from. As he turned around to try to find out the source of the noise, Rezzie had leapt into the air and aimed a spear kick into the side of the man's body. He only had just enough time to see his attacker coming, but he had no time to do anything about it.

As Rezzie touched down on the ground, the man flew back and was sprawled on the ground fifteen feet away, just within the edge of the light. The lead pipe bounced off the ground before rolling a few feet in front of him. Scrambling to his feet, he kept his stance lowered to where he would be able to keep himself prepared to get physical. When the man slowly rose to his feet to face the man that struck him down, Rezzie finally got a good look at him.

The man was none other than Randall, or at least that was what Rezzie could make of him. His long black hair was haggard, and pulled back into a ponytail. His facial hair on the right side of his face was mated into a full moustache and beard. But the left side of his face was severely disfigured, with burn scars and lacerations all over from his left cheek all the way to the left side of his forehead. The same injury that Rezzie had personally gave Randall the last time they met.

"Randall?" Rezzie asked as a mix of emotions were fluttering through his mind.  
"You," Randall growled as he recognized the face of his enemy, "you're gonna pay for what you did to me, you son of a bitch! You ruined my life!"  
"Uh, no I didn't."  
"You cost me my meth lab!" Randall continued, as he picked up the nailed pipe off the pavement.  
"Wait, isn't that a little private?"  
"AND YOU MELTED MY FACE!" Randall roared as he charged at Rezzie.  
"Okay, you got me on that one," Rezzie conceded on the accusation.

Randall tried to hit Rezzie with a wide downward swing, hoping to gouge his head with the large nails that were imbedded into the pipe. However, Rezzie rolled to the side and dodged the pipe, which clanged hard on the ground. The force of impact knocked a few of the nails out of the pipe and bent several more, lessening the lethality of the weapon. As Rezzie rolled to his feet, he found himself backed up to the street lamp. Turning the weapon to its undamaged side, Randall swung at Rezzie horizontally with the pipe. However, Rezzie ducked down and the nails dug deep into the steel street lamp, lodging it in place.

Randall grunted as he tried futilly to pry his weapon free, but to no avail. Rezzie swooped in and aimed an elbow towards Randall's groin, causing him to reel back in pain, cupping his testicles. Seeing an opening, Rezzie hit Randall across the chin with a haymaker, nearly knocking Randall to the ground. However, he recovered quickly and struck Rezzie in the side of the head with his metal fist, knocking Rezzie to the ground several feet away.

Using the momentum of the knockdown to his advantage, Rezzie rolled back to his feet. The side of his head was bleeding as a gash from the metal fist cut his head open. Feeling the side of his head, he was internally relieved that his skull wasn't cracked open from the strike. Randall spat out a wad of blood from his mouth. Rezzie had to admire his opponent's resilience

"By the Gods, what the hell is up with your hand?" Rezzie asked incredulously, "why is it metal?"  
"After you broke my hand and I became wanted by every cop in the capitol, I had it dipped and coated in molten steel," Randall explained.  
"And because of that, you now you jerk off with your left," Rezzie shook his head at his opponent's stupidity, "you're a freaking idiot."  
"Not like it matters at this point. If I'm going to jail, I might as well go all in. After when I'm done with you, I'm gonna take care of Nesha's fatass brother and his family."

Randall charged at Rezzie once more and tried to rain down hammer blows with the metal fist in an attempt to repeatedly bludgeon Rezzie. However, the smaller opponent brought his arms up and endured the assault. Catching the last hammer blow, Rezzie tossed Randall over his shoulder, causing his opponent to tumble and smack headfirst into the street lamp. Seeing the opportunity, Rezzie rushed forward and tried to pounce on Randall. However, he turned around and cocked the metal fist back and caught Rezzie cleanly in the diaphragm with a counter, causing Rezzie to fall backwards, gasping for air.

As Rezzie got himself to one knee in his struggle to get to his feet, he saw Randall rise to his feet. His face was split open by blunt force trauma, with blood rushing down his face. Placing his foot on the street lamp as leverage, Randall tore the lead pipe free. However, when he tore the pipe free, the nails that were lodged in the street lamp cut several wires that were powering the light, causing the lamp to start dimming out. Approaching his fallen enemy, Randall raised the lead pipe over his head.

"End of the line, asshole," Randall grinned savagely as he stood over him, "when you make it to Hell, tell Nesha that he's still a bitch."

As the lights dimmed away completely, Randall went for the kill. Bringing the lead pipe back, he swung it over his head and brought it down towards Rezzie's head. With every fiber of his being, Rezzie raised his right arm up to block the strike, just before everything went black…

—

Rezzie blinked as he found himself in complete darkness. He was no longer on the park trail awaiting execution from Randall. Nor was Nesha's mangled body. From where he stood, he was alone in the empty darkness. Rising to his feet, he looked around in surprise of his new surroundings.

Oddly enough, his body didn't hurt at all. He first checked his torso to find that there was no pain or blemishes from where Randall's metal fist drove into him. He checked the side of his head to find there was no blood nor any gash from where he was bludgeoned. Deciding the recovery was a silver lining, he didn't bother to further address it.

"Hello! Somebody!" Rezzie shouted as he called out into the empty, "Anybody!"  
 ** _[If you could trade, would you?]_**

Rezzie shivered as the voice reverberated around him and pierced him deep into his core. Hearing it, he found that it sounded just like him, only far more gnarled and carrying an echo. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming or not. All he wanted to do at this point was wake up back at his house, back with his family.

"Who's there? Who are you?" Rezzie asked, nervous of this new development.  
 ** _[If you could trade, would you?]_** the voice repeated.  
Feeling his thoughts suddenly calm down, Rezzie looked up and answered, "yes."  
 ** _[Well, of course. But all miracles demand sacrifice. For their lives?]_**  
While he certainly found it weird as to why he was giving the answer, he felt deep inside that it was the right thing to say at the time, "Mine."  
 ** _[Yours.]_**

Rezzie felt himself become surged with energy as a blood orange light shone around his body. The light felt warm against his skin as the energy invigorated him and gave him life. As the light further consumed him, he vanished from the black void. Before that happened, though, the voice rang out one last time.

 ** _[Now go forth brazen into that cold, dark night. And rage, rage…against the dying of the light.]_**

—

As Randall's pipe made contact with Rez's arm, the metal shattered into pieces against his skin, sending several pieces of shrapnel clanking off the pavement. Shocked, the pipe's wielder looked down to witness a greater horror. Rez was staring up at him, only his eyes were glowing a blood orange light, which creeped Randall out even more as his eyes were the only thing illuminated by its glow. Rising to his feet, he saw up close that Rez was completely expressionless, with no noise coming from him except for his long, calm breaths.

Holding his hand out, Rez quickly gave a short push forward against Randall's chest. With inhuman force, he was knocked clean off his feet and sent flying backwards ten yards before collapsing on the ground in a heap, The remains of the lead pipe was sent into the stream nearby, sinking to the bottom. Struggling to his feet, Randall held his chest in pain as he found that his sternum was broken.

Looking up, his eyes widened as the glowing pair of eyes was on the move, advancing towards him. Rez's footsteps made no noise as he calmly approached. Going on the offensive, Randall swung at Rez's face to try to cave it in. However, Rez caught the punch in his left hand mere inches from his face. Holding out his free hand, he channeled it with the same blood orange light that was shining in his eyes. With a swift motion of his right hand, Rez brought it down on Randall's forearm in a chopping motion. The strike cut cleanly into Randall's arm and chopped it cleanly and silently.

Initially, Randall wasn't able to process the fact that his hand was gone. There was no blood, no pain. The only thing that was there was the smell of cooked flesh as the wound was cauterized to prevent blood loss. After staggering back, he fell to his knees as the horror set in and let out an agonizing wail into the night sky. The screams echoed off the trees around them, but no one apart from Rez was there to hear it.

"What the hell!? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU!?" Randall howled as he writhed on the ground.

Rez was silent as he dropped the metal fist on the pavement. The amputated limb shattered into orange light as it landed on the walkway. He then walked over and grabbed Randall by his face with one hand, hoisting him up off the ground like a rag doll. Randall could feel the firm grip that was placed on him, and could feel the bones that made his face start to crack. The new wave of pain made him groggy to the point of passing out. All that he could think of was the realization that he was going to die. The worst thought that went through Randall's mind was that this monster was going to do it slowly with a great deal of suffering.

Looking over to Nesha's body, Rez walked over to him while still holding Randall in the air. In a few paces, he was standing in front of it while looking down staring at it. Randall couldn't tell how long that this monster took, but before he could find out Rez turned his face to make eye contact with his captive. His glowing eyes narrowed at the man, and Randall took it as a sign that the end was near.

"Wait, wait man. I give up," Randall pleaded as his struggled in vain to break free, "I'll get clean, I'll turn myself into the police-wait, what are you doing?"

Rez then released his grip on his face, only for him to re-grab Randall by the throat with the same hand. He then slammed him into the pavement right next to Nesha's body. The force cracked the pavement and fractured the vertebrae in Randall's neck. With his free hand, he placed it over Nesha's chest where his heart was. Nesha's body began to glow with light, consuming him from head to toe. His body began to knit itself back together as the holes, dents and gashes that Randall inflicted on the man earlier. Slowly but surely, Nesha's body would eventually be made whole.

Randall was marveled by the sight, but he failed to see what was happening to him until he saw his own body glow in the exact same light. Starting with his feet going up, his body was being deconstructed into nothing. That's when he understood what was happening – he was being sacrificed. To save Nesha's life, to piece his body back together, Randall was going to die and be destroyed in his place.

As his lower body was disintegrated by the light, Randall was mortified, "No, please! NO!" Randall screamed in his death throes as he begged for his life, "I'll do anything, man! Please don't kill me! Not like this!"

Within a minute, Randall's body disappeared without a trace. The particles of light that he was dispersed into floated off into the sky for several feet before fading out completely. As the light left Nesha's body and the orange glow in Rez's eyes dissipated, the last bit of mending was done. His body looked unscathed, alive and with no injuries in sight. While he was no longer dead, the only problem now was that Nesha was still knocked out cold.

Carefully picking up his body and slinging him over his shoulder, Rez hoisted him over his shoulders and went own the trail back to Nesha's house. Seeing lights off into the distance, he knew that he as almost out of the woods. However, he knew that Nesha's family would be alarmed to see Rez walking in with one of their kin slumped over his shoulder. He was sure he would have a lot of explaining to do once he got there.


End file.
